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Afghan Teen in Custody

DW staff (sms)August 22, 2007

Afghan intelligence agents have arrested a teenager who allegedly detonated the roadside bomb that killed three German police officers outside of Kabul last week, an intelligence spokesman said.

https://p.dw.com/p/BWr5
Three German police officers were killed in a roadside bombing last weekImage: AP

"The one who has detonated the mine is a boy and has been arrested," Sayed Ansari, spokesman for the intelligence service National Directorate for Security (NDS) told the German DPA news agency.

"He was arrested by our National Directorate of Security forces two hours after the incident," Ansari said, adding that the boy, who was reported to be either 15 or 16 years old, was being interrogated and that the reason for the attack remained unclear.

The online version of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel also reported Tuesday that a young Afghan had been arrested in connection with the bombing. Neither the German Foreign Office nor the Federal Criminal Police, in which the three officers served, confirmed the report.

A police checkpoint in Afghanistan
Some in Berlin fear Germans may become the targets of further violenceImage: picture-alliance/ dpa

Western security officials told DPA they highly doubted the boy was responsible for causing the explosion that killed the three officers attached to the German embassy in Kabul last Wednesday. Taliban members said they were responsible for the attack, though the claim could not be independently confirmed.

Influencing German debate

The bombing last week, the kidnapping of a German aid worker, who was later released and returned to Germany on Wednesday, and the ongoing hostage crisis surrounding a 62-year-old German engineer have raised concerns that the Taliban is targeting Germans to influence the domestic debate surrounding three Bundeswehr deployments to Afghanistan.

"Those behind the attacks and kidnappings want to sabotage our long-term engagement," German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul told weekly newspaper Die Zeit. "That's why we can't give in to them."

Germany has a total of about 3,000 troops serving in Afghanistan under three mandates, all of which are up for renewal this autumn.