'Foreign agents' behind embassy car bomb

Afghanistan's presidential spokesman has inferred that the car bomb attack on the Indian Embassy which killed 41 people was carried out by Pakistan.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistani agents of being behind the April assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai, a mass jail break in Kandahar last month and a string of other attacks.

Mr Karzai threatened last month to send troops across the border to attack militants there if Pakistan did not take action.

Pakistan has rejected the latest Afghan accusations and strongly condemned Monday's attack.

But the president's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said: "Everything has the hallmark of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar terrorist acts inside Afghanistan in the past."

A suicide car bomb rammed into the gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing two Indian diplomats, two Indian guards, people waiting in line for visas and shoppers at a nearby market.

It was the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since US-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

Mr Hamidzada said: "We believe firmly that there is a particular intelligence agency behind it. I'm not going to name it anymore, I think it's pretty obvious."

Afghan analysts say Pakistan is unsettled by the close relations between its main rival India and Afghanistan, a country it sees as being in its own sphere of influence.

Pakistani agents, they argue, are aiding Taliban insurgents so that Pakistan is able to achieve strategic depth and allow its forces to concentrate on defending the border with India.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.