Embassy bombing part of series of attacks

NEW DELHI, July 9 (UPI) -- The bombing this week at the Indian Embassy in Kabul was only the latest in a series of terror attacks aimed at India and its Afghan operations, officials said.

Indians believe that members of the Taliban want their country to drop its reconstruction program in Afghanistan, The New York Times reports.

"It is a notice saying you quit or we are going to hit you," said Lalit Mansingh, a retired diplomat with experience in Kabul.

About 4,000 Indians are working in Afghanistan, many of them involved in building a road that will connect Afghanistan to an Iranian port. Nine have been killed, including an engineer, a driver and seven paramilitary security guards.

The embassy bombing killed 41 people, four of them Indian.

C. Raja Mohn, an expert on foreign policy who teaches in Singapore, said that India and Pakistan must develop a common strategy.

"Whatever problems we had with Pakistan, Pakistan had been a buffer between India and the badlands," he said. "Now the buffer is falling apart. Afghanistan needs to be stabilized. Pakistan needs to be stabilized. This requires more drastic remedies."