KABUL — Afghan security forces have arrested five militants with 22,000 pounds of explosives that they smuggled in from Pakistan to carry out a massive attack in Kabul, as well as another three suspects allegedly planning to assassinate the vice president, an official said Saturday.
The reports of planned attacks in the Afghan capital came a week after militants said to be part of the Pakistan-based Haqqani group launched coordinated assaults in Kabul and three other cities.
Three of the five men arrested with the explosives were members of the Pakistani Taliban, while the other two belonged to the Afghan Taliban, said national director for security spokesman Shafiqullah Tahiry. He said the men’s orders came from militant leaders with ties to Pakistani intelligence. He did not say when the arrests took place, nor what their intended target was.
Tahiry said the seized explosives were packed in 400 bags and hidden under potatoes loaded in a truck with Pakistani license plates. The men confessed that they “had planned to carry out a terrorist attack in a key point in Kabul city,” Tahiry said. He provided a DVD showing images of the truck and the recorded confessions of the men but did not provide other proof to back up the claims. Tahiry also said that security forces had foiled an assassination attempt by the Haqqani network against Vice President Mohammed Karim Khalili.
The Associated Press
