Murder of Rabbani planned in Pakistan claims security agency

The murder of former Afghan President Rabbani in Kabul last month was planned in Pakistan, the Afghan security agency’s press secretary Latifulla Mashal claimed on Saturday. Rabbani was killed on September 20 by a suicide bomber who blew himself up in Rabbani’s home in Kabul, at a meeting for peace talks with the radical Islamic Taliban movement. The killer had concealed a bomb in his turban. Mashal said the principal figure behind the attack had been arrested. Important documents were found on the man as well as video and sound tracks and photos to identify his target, which have  now been given to the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul. The arrest was authorized by a special commission investigating the murder, set up by order of the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, including members of the Afghan special services. Mashal said the documents on the planner of the killing, who he did not name, clearly showed the plot was planned in one of the small satellite towns around Quetta, the capital of the southwest Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Local media have previously cited the arrested man as a certain Hamidulla a Pakistani. Demonstrations against the murder of Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, are continuing in the northern provinces of Afghanistan. The demonstrators, who are predominantly from Afghanistan’s Dari-speaking minorities, are demanding President Karzai finds the killers and punishes them.