Truck bomb plot foiled in Kabul
AFGHANISTAN: Afghanistan's intelligence agency said Friday that it
had foiled a massive truck bomb plot in which 7,800 kilogrammes of
explosives could have wiped out an area of Kabul.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the attack had been
planned by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network and the Taliban
leadership, though it offered no concrete evidence of the plot.
Shafiqullah Tahiri, spokesman for the spy agency, said the explosives
had been found on Tuesday, hidden in cement bags in a truck on the
eastern outskirts of the capital.
“Based on an investigation by the NDS, these explosives would have
destroyed everything within 1,500 metres,” Tahiri told reporters.
“It would have been a catastrophe for people living in the city if it
had been detonated.
“NDS forces discovered it due to prior information that the
terrorists were organising this attack in a crowded part of Kabul.”
During the NDS night raid early on Tuesday, five suspected plotters were
killed in an exchange of fire, Tahiri added. Two other people were
arrested.
Kabul has been hit by a series of bomb and suicide attacks in recent
years as Taliban insurgents battle against the US-backed government of
President Hamid Karzai.
AFP
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