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| Afghanistan |
| Insurgents "bought" suicide bomber: Afghan spy agency |
| 2011-07-04 |
| [Dawn] Afghanistan's intelligence agency said on Sunday that a senior commander from the Pak Taliban sold a jacket wallah to an Afghan jihad boy network, to carry out an attack on a local commander in eastern Afghanistan. Relations between the neighbours are already strained by weeks of cross-border shelling of Afghanistan's east. Pakistain denies more than "a few accidental" rounds have landed in Afghanistan; Kabul says hundreds have hit. The National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan's intelligence agency, said the bomber was a Pak national and was jugged by NDS agents in Jaji Maidan district of eastern Paktia province before he could carry out his mission. Sher Hassan was sent by the Haqqani network, considered one of the most dangerous Islamic exemplar groups fighting in Afghanistan, but had not signed up to join them, the NDS said in a statement. Instead he said he was bought by the group to target "Azizullah", a commander whose affiliation and rank were not given by the NDS. Hassan then spent a month after his sale training with the Haqqani network. "The jugged man added that a commander under Hakimullah Mehsud sells suicide bombers at 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 Pak rupees ($70,000 to $93,000), to the Haqqani network for suicide missions," the statement said. Mehsud is the leader of Pakistain's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), or the Taliban Movement of Pakistain, blamed for many suicide kabooms across Pakistain. The statement did not say what price Hassan had fetched, nor how he had been jugged. Parts of east Afghanistan share a long, and mostly non-existent border with the often lawless tribal areas of neighbouring Pakistain where forces of Evil targeting both the Pakistain state and Afghanistan -- including the Haqqani -- have their hideouts. The Haqqani network, led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, is allied with the Taliban but also believed to be closely linked to al Qaeda and the architect of several high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, including a brutal shootout inside a bank. Effective daily management of the group has passed from Jalaluddin Haqqani, who forged his reputation fighting the Soviet occupation of the 1980s but is now thought to be ill, to Sirajuddin, his eldest son. Violence has flared across Afghanistan since the Taliban announced a spring offensive at the beginning of May. The detention of Hassan comes days after a group of suicide bombers staged a brazen attack on a landmark hotel in western part of capital Kabul that killed at least ten. Afghan officials say sanctuaries inside Pakistain's borders help beturbanned goons to train, rest, and recruit fighters before crossing into Afghanistan to stage attacks. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Oh dear. One knows such things go on, of course, but it doesn't do to get caught. Especially as it's likely we'll see more stories of this sort -- the cannon fodder does so like to think of themselves as being self-aimed weapons, not mere tools to be sent hither and yon at at the whim of those staying safely far behind in the bosom of their family. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-07-04 18:44 |