'LeT, not Taliban, behind Kabul terror strike'

Afghanistan intelligence officials believe that terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba planned and carried out the terror attack in Kabul last week that killed 16 people, including six Indians.

The Afghan Taliban have already claimed responsibility for the attack, during which a car bomb was triggered off and terrorists wearing suicide vests raided hotels frequented by Indians and foreigners, targeting the visitors.

According to the spokesman of an Afghanistan intelligence agency, the LeT, which masterminded the terror attack on Mumbai, also planned the Kabul attack. The LeT is close to the Pakistani army, the spokesman told a TV channel during an interview.

The attack on the hotels, located in the heart of Kabul, was similar to the attacks on the Indian embassy and the attack on a hotel in the Afghan capital in January, he said.

Though the police had initially suspected the involvement of two suicide attackers, it was later revealed that four such attackers, wearing suicide vets and hiding under burqas, had carried out the attack. While one of them triggered off the car bomb, the other three raided two hotels and targeted the foreigners, said the police.

Investigators say that the Afghan Taliban would not have the logistical intelligence necessary to carry out such a strike, as the attackers even knew the names of the guests staying at the hotels.

Earlier, a suicide car bomber killed 17 people outside the Indian embassy in Kabul on October 8 last year. In a deadly attack on the embassy in July 2008, as many as 60 people had been killed, and India had blamed Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence for orchestrating the attack.