Senate blames Pakistan for attack on Afghan spy chief

KABUL’s Inter- Services Intelligence for the assassination plot.

The intelligence chief was badly wounded in a suicide attack on Thursday afternoon at his guest house in the Taimany locality of Kabul, after a man posing as a Taliban messenger approached him and detonated his explosives.

A senator from Baghlan, Nazar Mohammad Faqiri condemned the suicide attack, saying Khalid was a brave person who conducted many anti-militant operations along Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Both Pakistan and Iran are afraid of Khalid so they wanted to eliminate him, he added.

Another legislator from Daikundi, Ali Akbar Jamshedi, said Khalid had weakened the enemies, so Pakistan planned the attack.

He called for an urgent national security council meeting to discuss the incident and to prevent future assassination attempts against Afghan leaders.

A Hindu member of the upper house, Anarkali Hunaryar, also denounced the terrorist attack and blamed neighbouring Pakistan for the incident.

She asked the investigation committee to thoroughly probe the case and reveal their findings soon.

The attack took place due to the weakness of the country’s security apparatus, slammed another lawmaker from Bamyan, Hidayatullah Rahai, adding that if security forces could not protect their own chief, how they could protect other Afghans.

He said NDS, the country’s nodal intelligence agency, occupied a number of guest houses in different localities in Kabul and the number should be reduced for security reasons.

First deputy chairman of the senate, Mohammad Aleem Ezedyar, urged the committee to expose the responsible people to the public.

Many committees were established to investigate sensitive cases in the past but they produced no results, hope the committee’s findings on Khalid’s case do not face similar fate, added Ezedyar.

nz/myn