ISI Directing Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan: US Lawmaker

[A.Rafay]

WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s spy agency ISI is directing the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, a US lawmaker has alleged, saying his view is based on his meetings with the people and officials in the war-torn country.

“US military commanders at several levels of the chain of command indicated that they believe Pakistan and its intelligence agency specifically, the ISI, is directing the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan,” California’s Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter told the UTSanDiego.Com.


“The fact that they (Pakistanis) are controlling them was pretty astounding to me. It’s bad, but it bodes well I think for long-term stability. That means it’s an external threat. It’s not an internal Taliban takeover like it was in the ’90s,” said Hunter, who visited Afghanistan as part of a Congressional delegation – the first to visit the country after the recent withdrawal of surge forces from there.

Hunter hinted that the Pakistani establishment might also be involved in the insiders attack.

“Everybody is taking the insider threat thing seriously on both sides, especially the Afghans. They are really getting to the bottom of it in every way they can. Now that the army is at its strength, they can kind of re-vet and check everybody,” he said.

ISI Directing Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan: US Lawmaker | PKKH.tv

 

[BATMAN]

At the same time allowing free transit to the supplies of TTP which kill ISI in return.

 

[somebozo]

October 1994: US Gives Very Early Support to Taliban


Afghanistan has been mired in civil war ever since the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989. The Taliban arise organically in early 1994, but are soon co-opted by the Pakistani ISI (see Spring-Autumn 1994). By mid-October 1994, the Taliban takes over the town of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Before the end of the month, John Monjo, the US ambassador to Pakistan, makes a tour of areas controlled by the Taliban with Pakistan’s Interior Minister Nasrullah Babar, who is said to have been been a force behind the Taliban’s creation. The State Department issues a press release calling the victory of the “students” a “positive development likely to bring stability back to the area.” [LABEVIERE, 1999, PP. 261-262]


1994-1997: US Supports Taliban Rise to Power

Journalist Ahmed Rashid, a long-time expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan, will later write in a book about the Taliban that the US supported the Taliban in its early years. “Between 1994 and 1996, the USA supported the Taliban politically through its allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, essentially because Washington viewed the Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia, and pro-Western. Between 1995 and 1997, US support was even more driven because of its backing for the Unocal [pipeline] project.” He notes that many US diplomats “saw them as messianic do-gooders—like born-again Christians from the American Bible Belt.” [DREYFUSS, 2005, PP. 326] Selig Harrison, a long-time regional expert with extensive CIA ties, will later say that he complained at the time about how Pakistani ISI support of the Taliban was backed by the CIA. “I warned them that we were creating a monster.” [TIMES OF INDIA, 3/7/2001] There is evidence the CIA may have helped supply the Taliban with weapons during the first months of their rise to power (see October 1994).

 

[Umair Nawaz]

TO AMERICA