Afghan bombings were planned in Pakistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- The recent spate of suicide bombings in Afghanistan were planned and directed by Taliban insurgents operating freely out of Pakistan, detainees have revealed.

In videotaped interviews by an Afghan interrogator, two Afghans and three Pakistanis who were recently arrested described a low-budget network that begins with the recruitment of young bombers in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. The bombers are moved for training to safe houses in the border towns of Quetta and Chaman, and then sent into Afghanistan, where they are provided with cars and explosives and sent to find a target.

In the last three months, bombers have killed at least 70 people, most of them Afghan civilians but also international peacekeepers, a Canadian diplomat and a dozen Afghan police officers and soldiers.

But, in a satellite telephone interview with The New York Times, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi dismissed the claims of the Afghan government that Pakistan was involved.

"This is a propaganda campaign of the government," he said. "Our mujahedin don't send one group to one area so they can be found and arrested."