Kabul, July 20: The killer of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's close ally Jan Mohammad Khan had received telephone calls before and after the deadly shooting from Pakistan, the interior minister told parliament today.
Khan, the former governor of southern Uruzgan province and a key ally of the embattled Karzai, was killed in a gun attack on his Kabul home just days after the president's younger brother was killed in the south.
Interior minister Besmullah Mohammadi told parliament today that the government was investigating two calls made to the gunmen from Pakistan, according to another MP Mohammad Akbari.
”The two terrorists who attacked Jan Mohammad Khan's house received a call from Pakistan before their attack, and one call after they martyred Jan Mohammad, in which they congratulated the caller,” Mohammadi said during the general session of parliament, according to Akbari.
The assassination, claimed by the Taliban, came less than a week after the president's half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was shot dead by a friend at his home in southern Kandahar province in another attack claimed by the insurgents.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was in Kabul to pay his respects to Karzai on Tuesday over last week's assassination and to affirm a joint commitment to peace and stability in the region.
Key Taliban leaders fighting the Kabul government are believed to live across the porous and lawless border in Pakistan. AFP
