Afghan Officials Blame Pakistan for Kabul Restaurant Attack

by Jason Ditz

Officials with the Afghan National Security Council are accusing Pakistan’s spy agency of being secretly behind last week’s deadly attack on a Kabul restaurant, in the embassy district.

The attack involved three people, a suicide bomber and two gunmen, and killed 21 people, mostly foreigners, and including several top officials, including the head of the IMF in the country. The Taliban claimed credit for the attack.

The NSC is saying they don’t believe the “sophisticated and complex” attack was something the Taliban could’ve done by their own, and suggested an overseas spy agency, likely Pakistan’s ISI, were behind it.

It’s not unusual for the Afghan government to blame Pakistan’s spy agencies for major attacks, though in this case a three-person hit team doesn’t seem like such an elaborate operation that it required a lot of pre-planning.