Pakistani government denies links to Kabul bombing
Pakistani government denies spy service links to Kabul bombing
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Friday, 01, Aug 2008 07:29
The ISI, the Pakistani spy service, were not linked to last month's bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, according to Pakistan's government.
More than 50 people were killed in one of the worst ever bombings in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, when a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into the main entrance of the Indian embassy, opposite the Afghan interior ministry.
And US officials had claimed that spies within the ISI had helped the Taliban plan the attack.
However, government spokesman Sherry Rehman has denied any suggestion that the ISI could have been implicated in the bombing, contradicting earlier remarks.
Talking to the Associated Press news agency she had been quoted as saying "Years of backing an anti-Soviet jihad has left its mark.
"There are probably still individuals within the ISI who are ideologically sympathetic to the Taleban and act on their own in ways that are not in convergence with the policies and interests of the government of Pakistan.
"We need to identify these people and weed them out."
But talking to the BBC's Urdu service on Friday, "There is no question of any purge in the ISI.
"The government has already stated that there are no links or evidence of ISI involvement in the Kabul bombing. It was in the past during the Soviet jihad that a few pro-Taleban elements had found their way in, and with the change in policy have been firmly been rooted out."
The Kabul blast on July 7th followed warnings by the Taliban that it planned to step up its campaign of violence against the western-backed Afghan government.
Coalition forces have been fighting to defeat the Taliban since November 2001, when the extremist Islamist group was ejected from power.