Kandahar, Afghanistan – Arrests and interrogations of suspects in a recent series of suicide bombings in Afghanistan show that the attacks have been orchestrated from Pakistan by members of the ousted Taliban government with little interference by the Pakistani authorities, Afghan officials say.
In taped interviews by an Afghan interrogator, two Afghans and three Pakistanis who were among 21 people arrested in recent weeks described their roles in the attacks, which have killed at least 70 people in the past three months.
Most of those killed are Afghan citizens but also include international peacekeepers, a Canadian diplomat, and a dozen Afghan policemen and soldiers.
In the tape, the men described a fairly low-budget network that begins with the recruitment of young bombers in the sprawling Pakistani port city of Karachi.
The bombers are moved to safe houses in the border towns of Quetta and Chaman and then transferred into Afghanistan, where they are provided with cars and explosives and sent out to find a target.
The tape appears to confirm Afghan officials’ suspicions that the suicide bombings, which are largely a recent phenomenon in Afghanistan, were generated outside Afghanistan, and in particular from neighboring Pakistan. It was shown to The New York Times by an Afghan official.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, dismissed the claims. “This is a propaganda campaign of the government,” he said by satellite telephone from an unknown location.
But Afghan officials said the confessions provided the proof they needed to demand action from Pakistan.