Afghanistan Blames Spies for Attacks on NATO

Inconveniently points the finger at Iran and Pakistan

Even as the Afghan government said on Wednesday that it would take new measures to counter a wave of deadly insider killings of Western troops by Afghan security forces, President Hamid Karzai's office asserted for the first time that foreign spy agencies were behind most of the attacks, putting it directly at odds with NATO's assessment of the crisis.

After a special meeting of the president's security advisers, Mr. Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said Afghan authorities were studying every known insider attack, also known as green-on-blue attacks. He said that based on interrogations of attackers who had been detained, and other evidence like letters and records of phone calls, the government had concluded that the main culprits in the killings had been put in place by intelligence services from neighboring countries. He did not name them, but the government frequently accuses Pakistan and Iran of meddling.