Kabul guest house attack planned in Pakistan: Afghan agency

Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) on Wednesday said it has arrested two Haqqani Network militants who planned in Pakistan the attack on the Park Palace guest house here on May 13 that targeted the Indian ambassador but claimed 14 lives, including those of four Indians.

The Haqqani Network members were arrested in a special NDS operation in Sang-e-Nawishta area of Kabul, TOLONews quoted the statement.

The two militants confessed during preliminary investigations that the attack on Park Palace was planned by the Haqqani Network in Peshawar, capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan and that they used fake US Agency for International Development (USAID) identity documents to carry out the attack, the statement said.

The suspects were also allegedly involved in an attack on the interior ministry in Logar province.

Fourteen people died in the May 13 attack, including aid workers. The attack occurred at about 8.30 p.m. when gunmen entered the hotel and laid siege that lasted for about seven hours.

Among the dead were four Afghans, one Afghan-British citizen, four Indians, two Pakistanis, an Italian, a Kazakhstani and an American.

During the course of the attack, Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani's special envoy for good governance Ahmad Zia Massoud told reporters that the militants attacked the guest house thinking that Indian envoy Arun Sinha was present in the premises.

However, the Indian embassy said that Sinha was not present in the guest house when the attack took place.