Piecing together the jigsaw of the February 26 terror attacks on the two hotels in Kabul that killed 19 persons including seven Indians,investigators are now searching for one of the attackers who,they believe,escaped from one of the hotels by posing as a guest. Having recovered a vest laden with explosives,some ammunition and weapons from a particular spot in Park Residence,investigators are now looking at the possibility of one of the suicide bombers having shed his weapons and suicide vest before fleeing. It has now been established that three of the four terrorists involved in the attack were clad in burqas while the fourth one acted as the driver of the vehicle which carried them to the site of the attack. The terrorist posing as the driver got past the security checkpost saying he was ferrying three women. Once the vehicle crossed the checkpost,the three terrorists got down from the vehicle,took off their burqas and headed for Noor guest house and Park Residence. The terrorist driving the vehicle,meanwhile,drove towards Noor and rammed the explosive-laden vehicle into the boundary wall killing the two Afghan guards on duty. Following this explosion,one of the terroristswearing a suicide vest and carrying a Kalashnikov and hand grenadesentered Noor guest house and started firing indiscriminately. The Indian doctors and other medical staff in Noor took refuge in a room which was then targeted with hand grenades by the terrorist. The hand-grenade explosions resulted a fire in this room,sources said. At this point,Major Dr Laishram Jyotin Singh of the Army Medical Corps tried to physically disarm the terrorist. The terrorist lost his gun in the scuffle with Singh and blew himself up,killing the Major,too,in the explosion. The Majors act,however,saved the lives of many more holed up on the hotel. Meanwhile,the two other men entered Park Residence,which housed embassy officials,NGO workers and Indians working in private companies,and asked for Indian nationals. The hotels caretakers plea to spare him and his cousin as they were Afghans went unheeded and both were shot. While one terrorist blew himself up in the left wing of the hotel,the other one is believed to have shed his suicide vest and weapons before merging with the people running for cover. Syed Ansari, Afghan intelligence spokesperson,was quoted as saying by The Washington Post that one of the bombers yelled,Where is the Indian director, as he stormed into one of the hotels. The Post said others had also sought out the Indians. Ansari told the Post: We are very close to the exact proof and evidence that the attack on the Indian guest house. is not the work of Afghan Tailban but was carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) network who are dependent on the Pakistan military. That kind of information where the Indians are,is not the ability of the Afghan Taliban to know. While the Afghanistan government has come out blaming the Pakistan-based LeT for these attacks,top sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in New Delhi said that it could not be definitely said that LeT was behind the attack. MHA sources added that there are fresh reports of militants having sneaked into Kabul and Jalalabad and that more attacks could take place. The threat is definitely there. Intelligence suggests that it is not over yet. More attacks could take place, an MHA source said. A security assessment of Indian facilities in Afghanistan is already underway and sources said that the overall security cover in that country would be boosted shortly.
