Would-be Karzai assassins were Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 30 (UPI) -- The alleged members of an assassination plot against Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai were mostly government employees, officials said.

The Chicago Tribune Monday said it interviewed Afghan officials, government critics and one man arrested in the scheme, and determined that at least six of the accused conspirators were not foreign agents but domestic government employees, including an army general who had been in charge of maintaining most of the Army's weapons and vehicles. Afghan officials last week accused Pakistani intelligence agents of being involved in the late April incident.

However, instead of pointing to Pakistan, the assassination attempt indicates militants have infiltrated the Afghan military and are stepping up the sophistication of their attacks on Karzai's government, the Tribune said. Gunfire coming from a room in a nearby hotel was aimed at Karzai as he sat on a podium with foreign dignitaries, waiting for the country's most important annual military parade.

The plot's accused leader was killed in a battle with security forces. He was a former police nurse and fire department lieutenant allegedly involved in a January attack on a Kabul hotel. The newspaper said an accomplice, Talib Shah, was a general in the Afghan army.