KABUL, Afghanistan — The suicide bomber who tried to assassinate Afghanistan’s powerful new intelligence chief came from Pakistan and the attack was organized with the help of a sophisticated foreign intelligence service, President Hamid Karzai said Saturday.
Mr. Karzai said he would ask for clarification from Pakistan’s president, when the two men meet later this month, on whether Pakistan’s intelligence service was involved in any way. He said he wanted Pakistan’s help in easing ordinary Afghans’ suspicions that Pakistani interests were behind the attack — if not directly organizing it, then at least providing help.
The audacious assassination attempt on Asadullah Khalid, who had been leading the National Directorate of Security since September, has taken out of action an important figure in the war against the insurgency. It took place on Thursday when an unidentified attacker smuggled a bomb into a meeting at a guesthouse in central Kabul with Mr. Khalid.
“We will be seeking a lot of clarifications from Pakistan because we know that this man who came in the name of a guest to meet with Asadullah Khan Khalid came from Pakistan,” Mr. Karzai said at a news conference at the presidential palace here. “We know that for a fact, it is clear.”
The bomb, which Afghan authorities said was concealed around the attacker’s groin, left Mr. Khalid seriously injured.
The Taliban claimed responsibility, but Mr. Karzai said the attack was too sophisticated to be the work of the Taliban alone.
“This is not the work of Taliban,” he said. “This is a very professional and well-engineered attack. Taliban are not able to do this, but there are strong and skilled hands involved in the attack.”
Mr. Khalid, in his ascendancy to the top of the Afghan intelligence service, had emerged as one of the Taliban’s fiercest opponents and was also a strong critic of Pakistan’s influence in the country.
Mr. Karzai provided no evidence linking the attack to Pakistan. The government regularly accuses Pakistan of involvement in attacks, and has done so after assaults on other senior Afghan officials in recent years.
The president drew a distinction between different groups of the Taliban and said some were clearly controlled by the intelligence agencies of neighboring countries, although he said he had no evidence of where. “This is the work of a complicated, sophisticated and professional intelligence agency,” he said.
Mr. Karzai also said the attack was an effort to undermine progress toward meaningful negotiations. “Whenever the peace talks are getting closer to a conclusion or success being achieved in the peace process or hopes being achieved, we face such attacks,” he said.
Many Afghans have raised questions about how an attacker could get so close to such a powerful man regarded as an extremely sophisticated operator.
Mr. Karzai admitted that a security screening had failed, but the government’s statement that the bomb was concealed around the attacker’s groin suggests why it was not detected: an invasive search would have violated Afghanistan’s traditional mores.
Mr. Karzai said Mr. Khalid himself had prevented a more thorough search out of respect for his guest and Afghan tradition.
Mr. Karzai also said Mr. Khalid had told him the evening before the attack about the planned meeting. There was no information about who the attacker was, but Mr. Khalid told him that he hoped the meeting would advance the country’s peace and security, the president said.
Mr. Karzai visited Mr. Khalid on Thursday at a hospital in Kabul before he was taken to better medical facilities at Bagram Air Base, one of the largest coalition bases in Afghanistan.
According to Western officials, Mr. Khalid has serious abdominal injuries and will need multiple operations. Mr. Karzai on Saturday offered few details of the injuries, but said that Mr. Khalid was improving and was now fully conscious and able to speak, and move his hands.
