Sources told The Indian Express that the Indian Embassy attack — in which 58 people were killed and 141 injured — is being looked upon as a rare instance of highest-level cooperation between Washington, Kabul and New Delhi. Among others, India’s military attaché in Kabul, Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta, IFS officer V Venkateswara and two ITBP guards were killed in the attack.

Sources say four Afghan nationals are detained in Kabul. These suspects are being described as the “foot-soldiers” who may have aided the car bombing and New Delhi was advised to send a team of interrogators before they were moved to judicial custody.

A team, comprising an official of the Research and Analyses Wing (RAW) and an official of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), both of whom speak Dari and Pashto, are in Kabul and are expected to return in two days.

It is learnt that the sharing of intelligence in Kabul began even at the threat perception stage, days before the July 7 bombing.

The existence of telephone intercepts with US intelligence was first published in The New York Times on August 1 (the newspaper described it as the “a-ha moment” as far as evidence of the role of Pakistan’s ISI is concerned) but it now transpires that telephone conversations which hinted at the attack were intercepted initially by Afghan officials and, later, by Indian intelligence as well.

Details of interception of what is being described as “non-specific” conversations between Pak intelligence officials and militia in Afghanistan were passed on through diplomatic channels to India. Following the warnings, security around the Indian mission was strengthened. In end-June, it was US intelligence that intercepted telephone conversations and picked up “specific warnings” and later, still days before the attack, Indian intelligence agencies intercepted telephone conversations which are, however, described as “somewhat vague.”

Significantly, 10 days after the attack, copies of transcripts of telephone calls intercepted by US intelligence were handed over to Indian officials in Washington, which explains New Delhi’s assertiveness that it has “sufficient proof” about the perpetrators of the attack, an allegation Islamabad has vehemently denied.