Recent Kabul attacks were beyond Taliban’s ability: NDS

KABUL‘s ability”, accusing “a strong foreign intelligence network” behind the assaults.

Two bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the Kabul traffic police headquarters last month before another group of militants stormed the compound.

At least three policemen were killed in the nine-hour gun battle, the second insurgent assault in Kabul in less than a week.

The second attack, coming five days after, involved six suicide bombers who stormed the NDS compound in downtown Kabul, killing one guard and wounding dozens. The attack bore several similarities to the previous one, including the use of a secondary car bomb placed outside the government compound.

“The attacks were beyond of the ability of the Taliban. Professional terrorists and intelligence men had architected the assaults,” NDS spokesman Shafiqullah Tahiri told to a press conference in Kabul.

He said through such spectacular attacks the Taliban wanted to have a greater say in the peace process and obtain more privileges.

“The Taliban want to show they are stronger than ever,” said Tahiri, who claimed NDS agents had captured a group of four men involved in the attack on the Traffic Directorate.

The detainees had confessed to dispatching the suicide bombers a night before the assault from Arzaqimat neighbourhood and Qala-i-Zaman Khan locality to the Demazang area.

He also said a six-member suicide squad had been arrested in the Salim Karwan blocs area in the jurisdiction of the fourth police district in Kabul before they could strike military installations.

Six suicides jackets, as many Ak47s, knives and 50 hand grenades were recovered from their possession, he said.

The claim comes two days Pakistan‘s interior minister said that the government was ready to hold peace talks with domestic Taliban militants.

“We are ready to start talks with you,” Malik told reporters, adding that bullets are “not the answer.”

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