Six held over plot to kill Karzai: Kabul

Six people have been arrested after an alleged plot to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai was foiled.

KABUL: Afghanistan's intelligence agency said on Wednesday it had thwarted a plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai after arresting a bodyguard and five people with links to the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.

The plotters, who included university students and a medical professor, had been trained to launch attacks in the capital Kabul and had recruited one of Karzai's bodyguards to kill the president, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) said.

"A dangerous and educated group including teachers and students wanted to assassinate President Hamid Karzai," spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told a news conference.

"Unfortunately they infiltrated the presidential protection system and recruited one of the president's bodyguards."

Mashal said those detained had ties with three men, including an Egyptian and a Bangladeshi, who were all members of al Qaeda and the Haqqani network which is based in Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan.

Those arrested were part of a "most sophisticated" group who confessed to having been trained to use guns, rockets and suicide attacks, he said, with top government officials among the targets.

They also said they had received $150,000 to fund their activities, and planned to kill Karzai during one of his trips outside the capital, Mashal added

Karzai has been the target of at least three assassination attempts since becoming Afghan leader in 2002, most notably in April 2008, when insurgents fired guns and rockets at a military parade he attended near the presidential palace in Kabul.

Mashal said the bodyguard, Mohebullah Ahmadi, was from Karzai's home village of Karz in southern Kandahar province, and he had been shown al Qaeda and Haqqani video propaganda to persuade him to take part in the assassination plot.

The Haqqanis are one of three Taliban-allied insurgent factions fighting in Afghanistan. Perhaps the most feared, they are thought to have introduced suicide bombing to the country, and to be behind many high-profile attacks.

They have sworn allegiance to the Taliban, but have long been suspected of also having ties to Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.

The news comes following a string of assassinations of key Karzai allies.

On September 20, peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed by a turban suicide bomber at his Kabul home, throwing into turmoil Karzai's strategy for trying to talk peace to the Taliban.

The Taliban have not claimed responsibility for the attack but Afghan officials claim it was carried out by a Pakistani and have accused Pakistan of refusing to cooperate in the probe into his death, a charge denied by Islamabad.

Karzai's powerful brother Ahmad Wali Karzai was killed by a security guard at his home in the southern city of Kandahar in July.

And senior presidential adviser Jan Mohammad was murdered less than a week later.

Karzai is currently on a visit to India.