Suicide bombing ring is brought down in Afghanistan, officials say

Afghan authorities say 17 men in an alleged bombing cell have been arrested. The group is thought to be allied with Pakistani militants and to have received aid from a Pakistani spy agency. Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Istanbul, Turkey -- Afghan authorities announced today they had broken up a suicide bombing cell responsible for a string of attacks in the capital, including a massive explosion last month that killed an American serviceman and wounded five other U.S. soldiers. In a disclosure likely to stoke tensions with Pakistan, a spokesman for Afghanistan's main intelligence service said the 17 men arrested in Kabul were believed to be affiliated with a Pakistan-based militant group known as the Haqqani network and that the cell's ringleader was a Pakistani national. The spokesman, Sayed Ansari, also hinted that the plotters were assisted by Pakistan's powerful Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI. Afghanistan has long accused Pakistan of failing to crack down on insurgents who use Pakistan's lawless tribal areas as a staging ground for attacks inside Afghanistan. Relations between the two neighbors have warmed considerably since President Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, took office five months ago. Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended Zardari's inauguration and hailed what he called a fresh start for relations between the two nations. But critics and allies alike have questioned the Zardari government's ability to move effectively against insurgents in the tribal areas -- or to rein in the ISI, which has a long history of aiding groups such as the Taliban. The spy agency's long-standing ties to the Haqqani network, led by veteran Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, were spotlighted last year when U.S. intelligence backed up Afghan authorities' assertion that the ISI had aided the group in its bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July. That attack killed nearly 60 people. Pakistan heatedly denied any ISI involvement in the Indian Embassy attack. The Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the latest allegations from Kabul, said deputy spokesman Nadeem Hotiana. Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, told reporters that the bombing cell that was broken up had carried out half a dozen attacks in the Afghan capital over the last 22 months. Ansari said the suspects had confessed to all the bombings, including a Jan. 17 attack that targeted the German Embassy but also took place close to an American military base. In addition to the American soldier killed and five servicemen injured, four Afghan passersby were also killed and more than a dozen others hurt in that attack. No one inside the embassy was killed, although an undisclosed number of people were injured, according to German officials. The Afghan spokesman did not say when the arrests had occurred, only that they were the result of raids in three separate locations in Kabul. Three of the bombing ring's organizers remained at large and were believed to be in Pakistan, he said. Ansari's suggestion of ISI support for the Haqqani network was unmistakable but less specific than past Afghan allegations against the Pakistani spy agency. When asked about a possible ISI role in arming and training the Kabul ring, he replied: "Who arms Haqqani and organizes [him], and where has he established his bases?" U.S. military and intelligence officials have said the Haqqani network is based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal agency. Ansari said the Kabul plotters were also believed to have links to another Pakistani militant group known as Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, which originally fought Indian troops in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir but has more recently affiliated itself with the Taliban. Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, like other Kashmir jihadist groups, was believed to have been nurtured by the ISI.