Afghans give evidence of Burhanuddin Rabbani killing planned in Pakistan

Afghanistan's intelligence service said on Saturday it has given Pakistan hard evidence that former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani's assassination was planned in the southern outskirts of the Pakistani city of Quetta where key Taliban leaders are based.

The Taliban have not claimed responsibility for killing Rabbani, who headed the Afghan government's effort to broker peace with the insurgents.

A suicide bomber claiming to be a peace emissary from the Taliban killed Rabbani at the former president's home on Sept. 20 by detonating a bomb hidden in his turban.

Rabbani's death was a major setback to US-backed efforts to broker peace with insurgents and end the nearly decade-long war.

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last week, an Afghan intelligence official said Rabbani's death was plotted for four months by the Afghan Taliban's governing council known as the Quetta Shura, named after the city in southern Pakistan.

Lutifullah Mashal, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, provided the first details about where the assassination was allegedly planned at a news conference today.

"The place where Professor Rabbani's killing was planned is a town called Satellite near Quetta, Pakistan," Mashal told reporters. "The key person involved in the assassination of Rabbani has been arrested and he has provided lots of strong evidence about where and how it was planned. We have given all that evidence to the Pakistan embassy."