Afghanistan says Pakistan behind deadly Kabul hotel attack --- (Reuters) - Afghanistan accused Pakistan's intelligence service on Monday of staging last week's attack on a hotel in Kabul in which nine people including foreigners were shot dead by militants. -- Afghanistan usually speaks of unnamed foreign powers when it wants to hint at a suspected Pakistani role in an incident, but the statement by Afghanistan's NDS intelligence agency pointed its finger directly at Islamabad. -- Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected any responsibility for the gunmen who managed to smuggle pistols past the Serena hotel's heavy security cordon last Thursday. -- They then waited for a hotel restaurant to fill up for an Afghan New Year dinner before emerging to shoot diners. Three children between two and five were found with bullets in their heads and four of the nine dead were foreigners. The death toll included an Afghan journalist with the AFP news agency. -- "NDS investigations and findings after the tragic incident reveal that Pakistani intelligence services were involved in planning this heinous attack," the Afghan statement said. -- Pakistan's foreign ministry called it "disturbing" that Kabul was implicating Islamabad in the attack. "We reject the insinuation. The tendency to immediately blame Pakistan is unhelpful and should be discarded," it said. -- Afghanistan has long had an uneasy relationship with its eastern neighbour, accusing it of harbouring Taliban militants and helping them stage attacks on Afghan soil. - More, Maria Golovnina, at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/24/us-afghanistan-pakistan-idUSBREA2N15J20140324