KABUL: Afghan security forces detained five militants with massive quantities of explosive materials and linked them to Pakistan-based groups, an intelligence official said on Saturday.

“It could have caused large-scale bloodshed,” National Directorate of Security (NDS) spokesman Shafiqullah Tahiri told a news conference.

“Three Pakistani terrorists and two of their Afghan collaborators who placed the explosives under bags of potatoes in a truck were caught.”

The 10 tons of potassium, used to make bombs, were stuffed into 400 bags and hidden under potatoes in the back of a Pakistan-registered truck on Kabul’s outskirts, Tahiri said.

“The detained men have told investigators that they planned multiple attacks in crowded areas of Kabul city using the explosives.”

The material was loaded at a storage facility in upmarket Hayatabad, situated on the ring road near Peshawar, and trucked across the border, the NDS alleged.

The US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, said there was “no question” that the Haqqani network, which Washington claims is based in North Waziristan region, mounted last weekend’s 18-hour rocket and gunfire militant operation in Kabul.

Crocker called on Pakistan to crack down on the Haqqanis and said the response to that demand would influence future ties between the strategic allies.

Relations have been heavily strained by a series of events, including the unilateral US special forces’ raid that killed Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil last May.

Allegations denied

Pakistan has denied accusations that its military spy agency sees the Haqqanis as a counterweight to the growing influence of India in Afghanistan.

Tahiri said the five men confessed to receiving training from Noor Afzal and Mohammad Omar, who he identified as key commanders of the Pakistani Taliban and Pakistan intelligence.

Video footage released by the NDS to media showed the detained men, including the alleged Pakistanis, talking about where they came from while sitting against a blank white wall.

A Pakistani intelligence official declined to comment on the accusations, while Afghan officials were not immediately available to give additional information.

While the Pakistani Taliban cooperate with the Afghan Taliban, they are sworn enemies of the Islamabad government and have mounted suicide bombings against Pakistani intelligence officials and security forces.

It’s still not clear whether the confessions will create a new crisis in relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Relations went into a freeze last year after Kabul accused Pakistani agents of playing a role in the September assassination of the head of the country’s High Peace Council.

Afghanistan has been accusing Pakistan of backing militant groups to further its interests.—Reuters