Plot to blow up dam hatched in Quetta: NDS

KABUL’s intelligence agency, an official alleged on Monday.

The intelligence service of the neighboring country helped the Taliban prepare the plan, a spokesman for the National Directorate of Security (NDS) told a news conference in Kabul.

“Mullah Abdul Ghani, a member of the Quetta Shura who plans suicide attacks, was behind the conspiracy,” Shafiqullah Tahiri claimed.

An individual named Syed Gul was captured while hiding the explosive material in a desert of Pakhtun Zarghon area, Tahiri said.

On Sunday, the NDS seized 1,300 kilograms of explosive materials that were transferred from Pakistan’s Balochistan province to Herat in 10 days to destroy the under-construction hydropower and irrigation dam.

In 2006, India promised funding for the reconstruction of the Salma Dam at an estimated cost of $200 million.

Once completed, the hydroelectric plant would produce 42 megawatts of power in addition to providing irrigation water for 75,000 hectares of farmland.

In January 2013, the Indian cabinet approved revised cost for the completion of the project and declared it would be completed in December 2014 — four years behind original schedule.

ml/mud