WASHINGTON DC: The United States is confident that the Haqqani network wasbehind the Taliban’s Saturday ambulance bomb in Kabul that killed more than100 people, officials say, a conclusion that could add friction to tiesbetween Washington and Islamabad.
The United States has long blamed militant safe havens in Pakistan forprolonging the war in Afghanistan. A claim Pakistan has vehemently denied.
“We are very confident the Taliban Haqqani network was behind the killingof more than 103 people this past Saturday,” said Captain Tom Gresback, aUS military spokesperson for the NATO-led Resolute Support mission inAfghanistan.
Another US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told Reuters theUnited States believed the attack was the work of the Taliban-affiliatedHaqqani network, which Washington and Kabul have long accused of beingbehind some of Afghanistan’s most deadly attacks.
Afghanistan’s envoy to the United Nations, Mahmoud Saikal, on Mondaysuggested the plot was too complex for the Taliban to have developed ontheir own.
“Given the degree of sophistication … can you expect an illiterate Talibanto come up with this kind of genius plot, using ambulances?” Saikal toldReuters in an interview, adding Kabul was still gathering information.“It’s not a simple thing to do.”
Saturday’s blast, claimed by the Taliban, was the deadliest since 150people were killed in a huge truck bomb explosion last May near the Germanembassy, which US officials also blamed on the Haqqani network.
It followed another Taliban-claimed attack a week earlier that killed morethan 20 people in a siege of the city’s Intercontinental Hotel.
On Monday, militants raided a military academy in Kabul, the Afghancapital, killing 11 soldiers. Islamic State claimed responsibility for theattack near the Marshal Fahim military academy on the city’s westernoutskirts.
The attacks have put pressure on President Ashraf Ghani and his US allies,who have expressed growing confidence that a new, more aggressive militarystrategy has succeeded in driving Taliban insurgents back from majorprovincial centers. – Agencies