Pakistani military officers behind Indian consulate attack: Afghan police

Kabul, Jan 12: Pakistani military officers were behind the January 3 terror attack on the Indian consulate in Afghanistan's Mazar-e-Sharif, a senior Afghan police official said on Tuesday.

Sayed Kamal Sadat, police chief of Afghanistan's northern Balkh province, said the attackers, "officers from across the border, were well-trained military men who fought Afghan security forces in the 25-hour siege", Tolo News reported.

"We saw with our own eyes and I can say 99 percent that those attackers were from Pakistani military and used special tactics while conducting their operation," Sadat was quoted as saying.

"The attackers were military personnel. They were educated and well prepared and had intelligence. They fought us and only by Allah's grace were we able to control them and eliminate them."

On January 3 night, the terrorists attacked the Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif. Among the weapons carried by the attackers were rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), Indian external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup confirmed at a media briefing in New Delhi on Thursday.

After being kept at bay by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel posted at the consulate, all the four terrorists were later killed by the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF).

One Afghan security personnel lost his life and nine others, including three civilians, were wounded in the incident.

Sadat on Tuesday said efforts were on to "track down, identify and detain those who assisted the attackers to gain access to the building that was opposite the consulate".

"We are jointly working with the NDS (National Directorate of Security) director and have spoken about this -- especially as they came here not able to speak in Dari or Pashtu but speaking in Urdu. It means obviously there is someone who guided those attackers and helped the attackers," the Tolo News report quoted Sadat as saying.

IANS