Two held in Rabbani assassination case
KABUL: Pakistan has arrested two people in connection with last year’s assassination of a former Afghan president who was trying to broker peace with the Taleban, two Afghan government officials said Friday.
The officials told The Associated Press that the two were detained in the Pakistani city of Quetta, the alleged base of the Taleban insurgency. The police chief in Quetta and the spokesman for the region’s paramilitary Frontier Corps said they had not heard of the alleged arrests.
Relations with Pakistan soured after the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghanistan’s former president and head of the government-appointed peace council. Rabbani was killed Sept. 20, 2011 in his home in Kabul by a suicide bomber posing as a peace emissary from the Taleban.
Afghan officials blamed Pakistanbased insurgents for the killing, which sapped hope for reconciling with the Taleban and raised fears about deteriorating security in Afghanistan just as foreign combat troops are starting to pull out.
Afghan Interior Minister Bismullah Khan Mohammadi went further, claiming in Parliament that Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence agency was involved in the killing. Pakistani officials denied the allegation, calling it baseless and irresponsible.
A special commission that Afghan President Hamid Karzai appointed to investigate Rabbani’s death concluded that the attack was planned in Quetta and that the primary assailant was a Pakistani citizen. The commission gave Pakistani authorities the names, addresses and phone numbers of people in Pakistan suspected of being involved in plotting the assassination.
One of the two Afghan officials said two individuals were arrested in Quetta last week. The other official said the two were on the list of possible suspects handed to Pakistani authorities last year.
The assassin, who hid explosives in his turban, gained entry to the former president’s home by convincing officials, including Karzai’s advisers, that he represented the Taleban leadership and wanted to discuss reconciliation.