Kabul, Oct 1 (IANS/RIA Novosti) The murder of former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kabul last month was planned in Pakistan, the Afghan security agency’s press secretary Latifulla Mashal claimed Saturday.


Rabbani was killed Sep 20 by a suicide bomber who blew himself up in Rabbani’s home in Kabul, at a meeting for peace talks with the Taliban movement. The killer had concealed a bomb in his turban.

Mashal said the principal figure behind the attack had been arrested. Important documents were found on the man as well as video and sound tracks and photos to identify his target, which have now been given to the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul.

The arrest was authorised by a special commission investigating the murder.

Mashal said the documents on the planner of the killing, who he did not name, clearly showed the plot was planned in one of the small satellite towns around Quetta, the capital of the southwest Pakistani province of Balochistan.

Local media have previously cited the arrested man as a certain Hamidulla, a Pakistani.

Demonstrations against the murder of Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, are continuing in the northern provinces of Afghanistan. The demonstrators, who are predominantly from Afghanistan’s Dari-speaking minorities, are demanding that President Hamid Karzai must find the killers and punish them.