Terrorist plot to kill US diplomat thwarted

AFGHAN intelligence officials have thwarted a plot to assassinate US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and arrested three Pakistanis armed with rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said yesterday.

The men were arrested in the Qarghayi district of northeastern Laghman province on Sunday, just 150 feet from where Khalilzad had planned to inaugurate a road along with Afghanistan’s interior minister, chief presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin told The Associated Press.

Two senior Afghan officials said the men had confessed to their crimes and said they were in Afghanistan “to fight jihad.”