| The Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) of Afghanistan's former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has blamed the Northern Alliance (NA) for the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul last week. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the HIA said the alliance backed such terrorist attacks due to its animosity towards Pakistan. The statement dismissed Afghan President Hamid Karzai's allegations that Pakistan was behind the attack on the Indian embassy. Certain leaders holding positions in Karzai's cabinet belonged to the NA, the statement said, adding that those leaders were persecuting their own countrymen. "Those [NA] people want to create differences between India and Pakistan with such tactics," said the HIA statement issued in Pushto. Leaders of the alliance had killed Afghans along with the Red Army in past, it said, and now they are cohorts of the Americans. The HIA condemned the killing of innocent people in attacks by warring groups, and directed its "mujahideen" to avoid targeting civilians. Hekmatyar is the founder of the , and held the office of from 1993 to 1994 and again in 1996-97. |