Kabul, Afghanistan – Afghan intelligence officials have thwarted a plot to assassinate U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and arrested three Pakistanis in northeastern Afghanistan, officials said today.
The men, who were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, were arrested in the Qarghayi district of Laghman province Sunday, just 150 feet from where Khalilzad had planned to inaugurate a road with Afghanistan’s interior minister, presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin told The Associated Press.
Afghan television broadcast a video of the men in custody. The suspects, all young and with thin mustaches, were seen sitting together on a brown sofa being questioned by a man off camera. They identified themselves as Murat Khan, Noor Alam and Zahid and said they are from Pakistan. None confessed on camera or were asked any questions about the attack on Khalilzad, who is to be the next U.S. ambassador in Iraq.
But two senior Afghan officials said the men had confessed to intelligence agents and told authorities they were in Afghanistan “to fight jihad,” or holy war.
“Their aim was to assassinate Khalilzad, and they came to Afghanistan specifically for this operation,” said one of the officials.
The officials, both of whom have intimate knowledge of the investigation, spoke on condition of anonymity due to the extreme sensitivity of the intelligence and their positions within the government.
The Afghan-born Khalilzad has been a powerful force in Afghanistan, often portrayed as the ultimate power behind U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai. The two are undoubtedly close, having known each other for decades.
Khalilzad warned last week that terrorist and rebel attacks are likely to escalate ahead of legislative elections in September.
Khalilzad canceled his appearance at the road opening at the last minute and was never in danger, the official said. The interior minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, also canceled his appearance.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul had no immediate comment on the arrests.
The official said the fact the plotters knew of Khalilzad’s trip, and that Jalali was supposed to be with him, was “very disturbing.” “We don’t know how they got this information,” he said.
It was not known who had sent the men. One of the officials said the Afghan government was extremely angry at what he called a “lack of cooperation” from Pakistan in stopping militants from crossing the border.
He said Islamabad’s lack of resolve was a factor in both the assassination plot and a recent surge in violence across southern Afghanistan that has left hundreds dead.
“We have always believed that if we got cooperation from Pakistan, this violence wouldn’t be happening,” he said. “These militants are getting support from people in Pakistan, and we are not convinced when Islamabad says it can’t control them.” Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed reacted angrily to any hint of official sanction for the attack.
“This is a baseless allegation,” he told AP. “Pakistan is not involved in any such thing now or in the past.” Afghan officials often accused Pakistan of not doing enough to seal its border, and say privately they believe some elements of the army and intelligence network are helping Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Pakistan vehemently denies the charges. Officials boast that they have stationed tens of thousands of troops along the border and arrested more than 700 al-Qaeda suspects.
Afghan Defense Minister Rahim Wardak warned on Friday that al-Qaeda had slipped at least half a dozen agents into the country and was seeking to bring Iraq-style carnage to Afghanistan.
Two of the men – both Arabs – detonated bombs attached to themselves earlier this month in attacks that killed 20 people and wounded four U.S. troops.
Today, U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts said foreign militants backed by networks channeling them money and arms had come into Afghanistan to try to subvert the elections. He said that for “operational security reasons” he could not identify the networks or who was backing them.
“Through our intelligence, working with the government of Afghanistan, we have identified outside influences coming in here to Afghanistan and trying to instill fear in this country,” he said at a news conference.
Elsewhere, fierce fighting between Taliban rebels and Afghan security forces left 18 insurgents and five others dead, a day after the U.S. military pounded suspected rebels in airstrikes that killed as many as 20, officials said.
Three U.S. troops were slightly wounded when a bomb exploded near their armored Humvee in Paktia province on Sunday, said U.S.
military spokesman Col. James Yonts.
Eleven rebels were killed in an hour-long firefight before dawn today after attacking a government office in the Washer district of Helmand province, said Haji Mohammed Wali, a spokesman for the governor. The district government chief and an Afghan soldier also died.
Seven rebels were killed late Sunday and early today after they attacked a police checkpoint on a stretch of the Kabul-Kandahar highway that runs through southern Zabul province, said Zabul’s deputy police chief, Bari Gul. A policeman manning the post was also was killed.
A suspected Taliban attack Sunday on a police car in western Herat province left a highway police chief and one of his men dead and four other officers wounded, said provincial police spokesman Abdul Rauf Hamidi.
Three months of bloodshed across the south and east has left hundreds dead, including 29 U.S. troops, and sparked fears that the Afghan war is widening, rather than winding down.
The three men arrested Sunday in the plot against Khalilzad were detained by members of the National Security Directorate, Afghanistan’s version of the CIA, after a tip-off that it was in the works.
Agents lying in wait surrounded the men’s station wagon when it slowed to go over a speed bump. They found the weapons – three Kalashnikov assault rifles and an RPG launcher with two shells – hidden among some clothes.
The men told agents they had been trained at a hideout in Wah Cantt, 20 miles west of Islamabad and home to a major Pakistani weapons and munitions factory. They later were moved to a town in the North West Frontier Province called Bara and crossed into Afghanistan last week.
They called accomplices in Pakistan and asked that they send suicide vests packed with explosives, but were told they would not arrive in time and were instructed to carry out the assassination with the weapons they had with them.
