Karzai says Pakistan behind Indian embassy bomb

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said onMonday Pakistani agents were behind the Indian embassy bombingin Kabul last week, the first time he has directly accusedPakistan of involvement in the suicide attack that killed 58people.

Afghan officials have previously said the July 7 attackbore all the hallmarks of a foreign intelligence agency butstopped short of naming any country.

But Afghanistan believes Pakistan is secretly helpingTaliban insurgents as a strategic asset to counter Indianinfluence, keep the war-torn country weak and allow Pakistaniforces to concentrate on defending the border with India.

Afghanistan has already blamed Pakistan for a string ofattacks, including an assassination bid on Karzai in April anda June assault on a prison that freed about 400 militants.

Pakistani officials deny the government is aiding themilitants and says Afghanistan is trying to cover up for itsown failure to defeat the insurgency more than six years afterU.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in the wake ofthe September 11 attacks.

Karzai last month threatened to send troops into Pakistanto fight militants there if Islamabad failed to take action.

He said on Monday that Pakistani agents were behind theembassy attack, the beheading of two Afghans in Pakistan lastmonth, the killing of two women in Afghanistan's Ghazniprovince and 24 people in a suicide bomb in Uruzgan province onSunday.

"Now this has become clear. And we have told the governmentof Pakistan that the killings of people in Afghanistan, thedestruction of bridges in Afghanistan ... are carried out byPakistan's intelligence and Pakistan's military departments,"Karzai told reporters.

"We know who martyred our two sisters and know who martyredour people in Deh Rawood (in Uruzgan) and know who martyred thepeople a few days back in Kabul," he said.

"We will take revenge for these two sisters of ours verysoon ... and we are telling the enemies of Afghanistan that wewill protect the honour of this country."

He gave no evidence to back up his accusations.

SHARP RISE IN BORDER ATTACKS

Karzai said in an interview broadcast on Monday he favouredgood ties with Pakistan, but added there were "elements inPakistan's intelligence and Pakistan's army" who did not want astable Afghanistan.

Afghan and NATO officials blame a sharp rise in violence ineastern Afghanistan this year on de-facto ceasefires betweenthe Pakistani military and militants in Pakistan's lawlesstribal regions that have allowed the Taliban to concentrate oncross-border attacks into Afghanistan.

The U.S. military says attacks in the east have gone up by40 percent since March over the same period last year.

Pakistan's new government has sought to negotiate peacedeals with the militant groups on its soil to bring an end toviolence that has claimed hundreds of Pakistani lives in thepast year.

(Editing by Valerie Lee)