The United States is confident that the Haqqani network was behind the Taliban's Saturday ambulance bomb in Kabul that killed more than 100 people, officials say, a conclusion that could add friction to ties between Washington and Islamabad. "We are very confident the Taliban Haqqani network was behind the killing of more than 103 people this past Saturday," said Captain Tom Gresback, a US military spokesman for the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, without elaborating further on US intelligence or offering any link to Pakistan.

Another US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told Reuters the United States believed the attack was the work of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network. Afghanistan's envoy to the United Nations, Mahmoud Saikal, on Monday suggested the plot was too complex for the Taliban to have developed on their own. "Given the degree of sophistication ... can you expect an illiterate Taliban to come up with this kind of genius plot, using ambulances?" Saikal told Reuters in an interview, adding Kabul was still gathering information.

"It's not a simple thing to do." Saturday's blast, claimed by the Taliban, was the deadliest since 150 people were killed in a huge truck bomb explosion last May near the German embassy, which US officials also blamed on the Haqqani network.

Copyright Reuters, 2018