Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency 'supports' Taliban: UK University

[rohailmalhi]

Why Pakistan must change its priorities



A report this week from the London School of Economics suggests that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) not only funds Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, but is officially represented on the militant movement's leadership council. Many within the Pakistani military remain convinced that supporting Islamist groups helps to expand and secure the country's regional interests. The extremist groups Pakistan once nurtured for its security, however, may ultimately prove to be the instruments of its demise.

The LSE report, based on interviews with Taliban commanders, former senior Taliban ministers, and western and Afghan security officials, confirms what has long been an open secret. After the 11 September terror attacks, then president Pervez Musharraf and his military corps commanders decided to ally openly with the Bush administration in the "war on terror" and preserve their proxy assets as a hedge against Indian influence.

That policy was vividly illustrated last February, when the ISI seized Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the Afghan Taliban's top field commanders and the second in command behind the group's founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar. The ISI also captured two of the Taliban's shadow governors who operated parallel governments in two Afghan provinces. In a limited tactical sense, the abductions were a success – US leaders pointed to a clear sign of progress in the nearly decade-long campaign and commanders in the field will gain valuable human intelligence to capture more insurgents.

The arrests, however, dealt neither a major blow to the Afghan Taliban network, nor represented a "new level of co-operation" between American and Pakistani forces in rooting out extremism. Furthermore, Pakistan refused to extradite the apprehended Taliban to Washington. And according to former UN envoy Kai Eide, at the time of his arrest, Mullah Baradar was in communication with the Afghan government, a sign that Pakistan may have sought to thwart substantive peace talks.

The Baradar episode reflects the piecemeal co-operation Islamabad has provided in the post-9/11 era to the US. A substantive commitment to US goals will require Pakistan to undertake a significant shift in its strategic priorities – which will be difficult.

Since the country's inception in 1947, the Pakistani military (not the Pakistani people) has apparently believed that its country's very existence depends on supporting violent, extremist groups, not strictly for ideological reasons, but as a means to expand and secure its regional interests. Aside from sponsoring Kashmiri insurrection groups since 1989, the Pakistani military infiltrated Pashtun guerrillas into Indian-held Kashmir in 1947, triggering the first Indo-Pakistan war. The Pakistani military once again attempted to annex Indian-held Kashmir in 1965, setting off the second Indo-Pakistan war. And the military infiltrated regular troops into Kargil in 1999, generating an international crisis in a now nuclear-armed subcontinent.

Since 9/11, the Pakistani government has claimed that its military is too ill-equipped and poorly-trained to effectively combat its internal guerrilla insurgency. That may be true, but it's also clear that the militancy plaguing the region is a byproduct of the Pakistani military's self-defeating strategic ambitions. Getting Pakistan to modify its policies will be difficult, since many of the extremists it currently assists have been nurtured by the military for more than 30 years.

Today, Pakistan's frontier region along the Afghan border stands fully Talibanised. In strategically located areas of the north, the military continually cedes the state's sovereignty to militants imposing their apocryphal interpretation of sharia law. These events must be understood as the latest in a long list of damaging strategic blunders sponsored by the Pakistani military.

In recent months, highly co-ordinated suicide bombings and explosions have rocked the city of Lahore, in the heart of Punjab province. Such bold attacks, some against the homes of Pakistani air force captains and police officials, represent the extent to which militants have turned against the state. The costs of such calamitous policies are self-evident, as the insurgency Pakistan spawned has morphed into a monster that it is unable to control.

In this respect, US officials and commentators have focused too heavily on how the clash of competing strategic interests between Islamabad and Washington impacts US interests in Afghanistan. But in order to convince Pakistan to end its long-standing assistance to militants, US leaders must underscore to their Pakistani counterparts that unless they radically alter their policies, their country will continue to be slammed by a heavy dose of cosmic blowback as the militants they support turn against the state.

Why Pakistan must change its priorities | Malou Innocent | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Man Cum up with sumthing new .ths is old crap . u ppl kept saying it again and again.

We are fighting a war and u successfully defeated talibans in many areas and now we are getting our remaining areas clear .

and about the Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar thing ISI is catching its own sponsored talibans right . ha ha .
Tht was a good plan he is an american man he tried to creat divsion between taliban factions in Pakistan so tht they attack more and more on Pakistani security forces and to create more and more instability in Pakistan.
Americans thought tht ISI will catch him and thn we will get our man back .But unfortunately he start speaking whn interrogated by security agencies . High Court has given stay on his transfer to any other country and the man who has taken the stay was killed by Taliban coz they alleged him for spying for America .

and u people keep on saying ISI is funding . even if it is they better knows wht they are doing . so stop crying and bring on proofs .

 

[GUNNER]

Facing Defeat in Afghanistan, U.S. 'Lies' About Pakistan's ISI

Is the United States so desperate about impending defeat in Afghanistan that it is setting up Pakistan as a scapegoat? Recent charges that Pakistan Intelligence has been aiding Taliban militants appear to have triggered this angry retort from the editorial board of Pakistan's Quetta and Peshawar-based Frontier Post.

EDITORIAL

June 15, 2010

Pakistan - The Frontier Post - Original Article (English)

Make no mistake about it - Western news networks, arguably at the behest of certain sections of their bureaucracies and intelligence apparatus, have mounted a calculated, well-orchestrated media offensive to vilify and demonize the Pakistani military, the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] and our incumbent political leadership. It will be unpardonable if Islamabad doesn’t finally break its reticence and speak out proactively.

Barring this, the nation will pay a heavy price for the ruling establishment's lackadaisicalness. This offensive is obviously vile, sinister and mischievous in intent. The recent report from the London-based Amnesty International on human rights in FATA alone leaves one stunned over its contents and its intents. Quite astonishingly, the world-renowned human rights watchdog based its report on completely outdated information to give credit to the notion that Pakistan's government and military has abandoned the region to live under the thumbs of brutal, oppressive militants.

[Editor's Note: The title of the Amnesty report is Millions suffer in 'human rights free zone' in Northwest Pakistan].

Since Amnesty’s information was factually wrong, its inference is also wrong. Aside from driving the militants out of the Swat and Malakand, Pakistan's military has decisively dismantled terrorist infrastructure in the tribal agencies of Bajaur and South Waziristan. In addition, the militants are on the run in various parts of other districts, despite sporadic resistance here and there. This is well known, and it is intriguing that Amnesty so spectacularly failed to take note of such a globally known fact in its report.

Furthermore, this unusual intelligence report has been backed up by an institution of higher learning. The London School of Economics report on the alleged funding, training and harboring of Afghan Taliban in its “sanctuaries” by the ISI is unmistakably a grand plant. The report’s author, a man that goes by the name of Matt Waldman [video below], has collated the feeds from news agencies to produce a piece of shoddy work that is so replete with holes that it may pass the scrutiny of the gullible, but not the clever. He has richly embellished it with superlatives and hyperbole. He claims, implausibly, to have met and interviewed nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan, whom he asserts revealed to him how the ISI “orchestrates, sustains and strongly influences the (Taliban) movement.”

“They say it (ISI) gives sanctuary to both Taliban and Haqqani groups, and provides huge support in terms of training, funding, munitions, and supplies,” he notes. And then, in his naiveté, this Matt Waldman gives away the whole game with an unconscious slip. He says, “In their words (the nine Taliban field commanders), "this is as clear as the sun in the sky.”

This is the language of a prosecutor, not a commander. The prosecutor argues and draws inferences - the commander does not. He doesn’t argue, he asserts. He makes categorical statements - and doesn't draw inferences. But where in the world would commanders confide in someone like this Matt Waldman about their sources of funding, arms supplies or sanctuaries, as these nine are supposed to have done? By every reckoning, his story is extremely shallow and weak. Yet Western trans-national news agencies have bitten into it hook, line and sinker, splashing it worldwide. This should provide the Islamabad establishment a glimpse of what's coming.

This report is the opening shot. In all probability, more are in the pipeline because Afghanistan's U.S.-led occupiers sense defeat. The-once zestful talk on their tongues of creating a democratic Afghanistan has long vanished. They now talk of giving Afghanistan a trained army and effective police force for its security and then leaving. President Barack Obama’s military-civilian surge strategy has too run into deep trouble and is failing to deliver. Meanwhile, the patience of the public in nations supplying the occupying troops is running out fast. Public opinion in Europe is fast turning against the Afghanistan war. Even in the United States, public opposition to the war is sharply ascendant. According to some opinion polls, as many as 70 percent Americans want their troops to come home.

Given this, Pakistan is sure to be nailed for the failure of the U.S.-led occupiers, and yarn like that woven by this Matt Waldman is sure to multiply in the days ahead. This will be to defame Pakistan and hurt the image of its military, the ISI and its ruling leadership. That necessarily requires Islamabad to nip this vile campaign in the bud, which cannot be accomplished with lifeless denials. Islamabad must proactively speak out about the two-faced game the occupiers and their spy agencies have played on Pakistan, in collusion with the Afghan intelligence apparatus [KHAD] and India’s RAW [Research and Analysis Wing].

 

[Cent4]

Baseless propaganda'
Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban have dismissed the findings of a report which says Pakistan's intelligence service had a direct role in supporting the insurgents.

The Taliban remain strong on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
In an e-mail sent to the BBC, the Taliban said the report was "baseless propaganda".

The report, compiled by a London School of Economics scholar, said Pakistani intelligence provided funding, training and sanctuaries to the Taliban on a much greater scale than previously thought.

"The Islamic Emirate considers this report of the London School of Economics as merely baseless propaganda," the letter said.

The Taliban have also denied reports that their fighters hanged a seven-year-old boy last week on charges of spying in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

"After a full investigation by the Islamic Emirate leadership, it became clear that no event of execution had taken place," a Taliban statement said.

The Taliban criticised journalists for misreporting the event.

BBC News - Dozens of Pakistani troops 'captured by the Taliban'

 

[Old School]

This sort of reports are usually created by government organizations and then presented to the public under the guise of study report. The reason behind this practice is to protect the sources and avoid diplomatic clashes. All governments do this in present day. This report in question has some truth ( I wont mention them) in it but it is also exaggerated in many areas. However, this report has nothing to do with the UK government. The current Afghan government's military intelligence (RAMA) played a part here. You will also find a couple of the member of this study group are Afghan (one is from Mazar e Sharif to be precise).

 

[mjnaushad]

This article is in urdu translated by google translator. So expect mistakes.


Satisfying the whole world is not easy.

Haroon Rashid
BBC Urdu com, Islamabad

Which are written in the early research that it was just interviewed individuals whose opinion is based on the evidence available for confirmation or otherwise of such research is questionable health from day one. But sometimes such In serious cases the evidence is also almost impossible to achieve.

London School of Economics Matt Waldman, a test car read this report I like Imran Series novel is exciting and interesting from beginning till the end but the question arises whether this is true? What ISI alleged ties with the Afghan Taliban are still up? And if so, the Pakistani security establishment is not ready to change your path?


But the author in the initial report openly acknowledged the fact is clear that this report is based on interviews so for them this right or wrong is difficult to verify that their agency to obtain solid evidence in such cases it it is impossible.

Then this research report or crude of Afghans hold anti-Pakistan comments thoughts?

What a well written report that if the ISI CIA be changed easily, its author Auctions can be classed as a personality. But Waldman Matt is one of those Western authors Afghanistan fight against. The sensitive topic of research, if elected, his goal will be something.

Pakistani ISI in Afghanistan in the past because of her controversial role is the majority of Afghans apparently responsible for his problems as the organization does. Go to Kabul or any city ISI god will get less. Such reports are to be interviewed for this kind of reaction against ISI not come forward to a achnby. But by adding these interviews is that the story was created is very dangerous. it also angered the armed forces of natural response was. apparently a critical report by a political government condemned Phil just now is quiet.

Some analysts, however this action against the creator of the reports are also recommended. Military officials say that the political option that they support any such action or not.

ISI neither the first time such allegations have faced, and certainly not the last time. Bynzyr former Prime Minister Bhutto murder probe the United Nations Commission also abroad, then leave the country within reach of the Institute was noted. So finally what is the purpose of this report?

This latest report from the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Afghanistan when Pakistani security agencies closer together in an effort to increase pressure as can be seen. A way to tell him that 'you believe it or not we understand it or are continuously monitoring '.

Afghan Taliban on Pakistan's alleged activities continue and the Quetta Shura ملاء Mohammad Omar in Quetta, the charges are quite old. But the first thing the report forward to the Quetta Shura told her what extent did ISI is what is held and the decision is imposed on the Taliban? This and other such charges was that photography is dangerous if it seems that the Afghan Taliban, ISI and nothing.

U.S. and other Western forces and the border with Pakistan till now pleasant atmosphere of trust can be declared. Because Pakistan during last year's successful operations against militants and have arrested top Taliban leaders . But how long will this favorable environment is not difficult to guess this. this relationship in the past winter are hot. When the Pakistani military action if the relevant conditions then are good. But when Pakistani security forces could not happen if relations in different stages before bitterness is coming.

Some analysts, where the report foul mood and not willing to accept, where the ISI of intentions, they do not much daay. Say anything but complete sincerity is dangerous to be a good intention is devastating. Maybe Therefore ISI whatever it took to satisfy the whole world not just talking about. It is so complicated that it qzyh absence of concrete evidence to establish the final opinion is impossible.


?BBC Urdu? - ????????? - ???? ??? ???: ???? ???? ?? ????? ???? ???? ???

 

[Icarus]

This is such BS, way to laud the sacrifices of the soldiers who are fighting and dying for the greater good of the world, all their sweat, blood and tears down the drain by a couple of wanna be economists, seriously, these guys think that they know the ground realities sitting thousands of kilometres from where REAL MEN are fighting to protect not only their nation but the world itself from being over run by this terrorist menace. Bravo, you douche bags, if nothing else, you proved that you can NEVER stop sticking your nose into affairs you know nothing about.

 

[Old School]

This is such BS, way to laud the sacrifices of the soldiers who are fighting and dying for the greater good of the world, all their sweat, blood and tears down the drain by a couple of wanna be economists, seriously, these guys think that they know the ground realities sitting thousands of kilometres from where REAL MEN are fighting to protect not only their nation but the world itself from being over run by this terrorist menace. Bravo, you douche bags, if nothing else, you proved that you can NEVER stop sticking your nose into affairs you know nothing about.

These economists have brought down the world economy to it's knees. Their nonsense do not work in the real world except for their thick salary slip. I wonder what would these LSE guys would do in a world when there will not be any corporation to work for as the economy goes down the drain. Living in the nirvana of BS , these corpo guys do more harm to people than any army can manage to do.

 

[SMC]

Baseless propaganda'
Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban have dismissed the findings of a report which says Pakistan's intelligence service had a direct role in supporting the insurgents.

The Taliban remain strong on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
In an e-mail sent to the BBC, the Taliban said the report was "baseless propaganda".

The report, compiled by a London School of Economics scholar, said Pakistani intelligence provided funding, training and sanctuaries to the Taliban on a much greater scale than previously thought.

"The Islamic Emirate considers this report of the London School of Economics as merely baseless propaganda," the letter said.

The Taliban have also denied reports that their fighters hanged a seven-year-old boy last week on charges of spying in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

"After a full investigation by the Islamic Emirate leadership, it became clear that no event of execution had taken place," a Taliban statement said.

The Taliban criticised journalists for misreporting the event.

BBC News - Dozens of Pakistani troops 'captured by the Taliban'

This actually puts the whole LSE report in dust. Bye bye

 

[fatman17]

ASIA PACIFIC
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2010


Jane's Defence Weekly

Pakistan rejects claims of ISI link with Taliban

Farhan Bokhari JDW Correspondent - Islamabad

Key Points
A report published by the London School of Economics claims that Pakistan is maintaining links with Taliban militants as part of its "official policy"

Pakistani officials have called the claims "rumour mongering"


Pakistani security and intelligence officials have rejected suggestions that the country's main intelligence organisation, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, maintains close links with Taliban militants in Afghanistan as part of its "official policy".

"Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude," said a report published on 13 June by the London School of Economics (LSE), based on interviews with Taliban commanders and former senior Taliban ministers as well as Western and Afghan security officials.

The report's findings once again raised concerns over the stability of Pakistan's partnership with the United States in combating the presence of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

However, the findings stung Pakistan's security establishment, raising questions over the tenacity of an alliance that could be central to the conflict in Afghanistan.

"These people don't know what is going on," a senior Pakistani official told Jane's on 17 June. "Should anyone trust Taliban sources exclusively? It is in their interest to weaken Pakistan's alliance with the US and NATO and that is why they are talking rubbish."

On 8 June a group of militants allied to the Taliban carried out an attack on a depot near Islamabad, that houses NATO trucks used to supply Western troops in Afghanistan. Up to eight people were killed and 50 trucks were destroyed.

Western defence officials in Islamabad said that the attack highlighted the freedom that militants still appear to have to operate in Pakistan. "If you look at the sequence of events in this attack, you will realise the ease with which this attack was carried out. If Pakistan is clamping down so hard on militant groups, why the freedom?" said one official.

However, the Pakistani security official speaking to Jane's on 17 June warned that reports such as the LSE's "present just a half truth and nothing more".

Pakistan has lost a large number of officers and soldiers in its campaign against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, which reinforces the country's commitment to fighting such militants, he said.

"You can't ignore the powerful reality of Pakistan's own sacrifices. Do you think we would get our soldiers killed and also patronise the killers?" he commented, warning that "casting doubts over Pakistan's contribution to fighting militants will only spoil our relations with the US and other NATO partners. No one except the Taliban will benefit from rumour mongering".

 

[fatman17]

Ties with bad guys help get bad guys: Gen Petraeus

By Anwar Iqbal

Saturday, 19 Jun, 2010

Gen Petraeus is the first senior US official to have publicly rejected the LSE report as incorrect.

WASHINGTON: A four-star US general, while refusing to endorse a London School of Economics report which blames Pakistan for maintaining links with the Afghan Taliban, says that “you have to have contact with bad guys to get intelligence on bad guys”.

When at a congressional hearing on Thursday a lawmaker quoted from the report to support his claim that Pakistan had links to the Afghan Taliban, Gen David Petraeus said: “Well, first of all, I don’t want to imply that I would accept the London School of Economics study or the individual who wrote that for them, his conclusions in all respects.”

A report released by the London School of Economics earlier this week claimed that support for the Afghan Taliban was “official policy” of the Inter-Services Intelligence.

Since then, experts have rejected the report as “shoddy”, based merely on interviews with Afghan intelligence officials who had their own reasons for implicating Pakistan.

Gen Petraeus, who as commander of the US Central Command oversees America’s war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, is the first senior US official to have publicly rejected the report as incorrect.

At two separate hearings at the US Senate and the House of Representatives this week he strongly defended Pakistan’s efforts to fight extremism.

When Martin Heinrich, a congressman from New Mexico, referred to the LSE report, Gen Petraeus expressed doubts about its authenticity and noted that links between Pakistani intelligence agencies and Afghans “date back decades from when we used the ISI to build the Mujahideen, who were used to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan.”

Although the US general acknowledged that “some of those ties continue in various forms”, he pointed out that such links were useful too.

“Some of them, by the way, gathering intelligence … you have to have contact with bad guys to get intelligence on bad guys. And so it’s very important, I think, again, to try to have this kind of nuanced feel for what is really going on.”

The Pakistanis, he said, also had carried out “impressive counter-insurgency operations” against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and their affiliates and in both settled and tribal areas.

They also were cooperating with the US “in a variety of ways”, which led to the killing of more than 12 out of an updated list of top 20 Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders during the last 18 months, he said.

“I do believe that the Pakistanis – the people, the leaders, the clerics, and the military – all recognise that you cannot allow poisonous snakes to have a nest in your backyard,” said the US general.

“Even if the tacit agreement is that they’re going to bite the neighbour’s kids instead of yours, eventually they turn around and bite you and your kids.”

Referring to a lawmaker who had questioned his use of the term ‘Pakistani partners,’ Gen Petraeus stressed the need for a long-term commitment to Pakistan.

“I think we have to continue what is slowly being seen by our Pakistani partners – and I say that word with sincerity – is as a sustained, substantial commitment. That is what they’re looking to see,” he said.

“There is history here. Three times before, including after Charlie Wilson’s war, we left precipitously after and left them holding the bag,” he added.

“They have enormous challenges, not just in the security arena, but in the economic arena, social, political … and it is hugely important that we be seen as partners by them and seen to be working to help them.”

Defining the US-Pakistan partnership in the war against terrorists, the general said: “They’re doing the fighting. We’re doing the enabling, with equipping, with funding … some training, intelligence exchanges, and the rest of that.”

The key in this equation, he added, was to build

 

[fatman17]

Shifting sands in Kabul

Saturday, June 19, 2010
Arif Nizami

The Sunday Times made the sensational, albeit nebulous, claim based on a report ostensibly commissioned by the London School of Economics that "there is growing evidence that the government in Islamabad arms the (Taliban) insurgents, gives them targets and has seats on their war council." Accusing Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, the ISI, of backing the Taliban is virtually as old as the Afghan conflict itself. In fact, many Western analysts, and some of our own, consider the Taliban a creation of the ISI.

However, what is a first is the accusation in the report is that President Zardari is in cahoots with the Taliban. According to the report, the president and a senior ISI official recently met 50 high-ranking Taliban commanders in jail and assured them of the government's support. Five days after the visit a handful of Taliban prisoners were set free in Quetta, the seat of the so-called Quetta Shura.

A presidential spokesman has vehemently denied the ludicrous report implicating Zardari, who is generally viewed as pro-Western and anti-Taliban. At the most he can be accused of abdicating the Afghan policy to COAS Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani and his trusted ISI chief, Lt Gen Shuja Pasha.

President Zardari, unlike his predecessor, has managed to have a reasonably good rapport with the Afghan president. But Karzai's credentials as an honest broker have increasingly become suspect in the eyes of his Western mentors. Perhaps that is why the Pakistani leader has also been implicated in the messy equation.

An ISI official expressing real or feigned surprise at the charge has admitted fostering contacts with militant groups. However, he said that, "to say we are sitting on their council, directing them and playing a game hurts me a lot, given the price we have paid."

The timing of the LSE report is ominous. It has been released at a time when NATO and US forces have become increasingly bogged down in Afghanistan. While casualties have mounted in recent months, the much-touted offensive in the Taliban home base of Kandahar has been delayed for months. The consultative peace jirga held in Kabul on June 2 endorsed the Karzai government policy of negotiating with the Taliban "to bring them into the political mainstream." For the West it is adding insult to injury.

The Afghan president has refused to clearly accuse the Taliban of the abortive attack on the peace jirga. One report quoted him as saying: "I don't know who did it!" While another report claims that he believes that the US and not the Taliban are responsible for the rocket attack on the conference.

As a direct outcome of the attack, President Karzai's long-trusted intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, a former aide of the late Ahmed Shah Massoud, and Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar were forced to resign. This is seen as a setback both for the US and the Indians. Saleh is a long-time ISI-hater who considers the Pakistani intelligence agency as Afghanistan's enemy number one. Obviously, Karzai, himself a Pakhtun, no longer considers them loyal.

Despite Karzai's fence-mending sojourn to the White House last month, a deep schism persists between Washington and Kabul. The US by questioning the transparency of the presidential elections held in autumn last year robbed Karzai of his legitimacy as a leader. The so-called drawdown plan of US and NATO troops by July 2011 does not sit well with the Afghan leader.

So far as Washington is concerned, it views President Karzai's contacts with the Taliban as highly suspect. The US is not happy about the secret meetings Karzai's half brother and trusted lieutenant Ahmed Wali Karzai had with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the former deputy commander of the Taliban. Neither was the ISI happy about these contacts. Hence, Baradar was arrested early this year by the very ISI which was housing him in Karachi.

Some analysts contend that Karzai has lost faith in the ability of the American and NATO forces to prevail in Afghanistan. Having serious doubts that the Americans and NATO forces can ever defeat the insurgents, he is trying to strike a secret deal with the Taliban and Pakistan. According to a US official quoted in the New York Times, "there are deep fissures among Afghan leaders how to deal with the Taliban and with their patrons in Pakistan."

In an interview Karzai's discredited intelligence chief has claimed that the Afghan president was strongly involved in a more conciliatory line towards Pakistan. According to him, Afghanistan will be forced to accept "an undignified deal" with Pakistan. He has also claimed that he was removed on Islamabad's insistence.

In this backdrop the timing of the LSE report based on a discussion paper appropriately titled as "The Sun in the Sky: the Relationship between Pakistan's ISI and Afghan Insurgents," is ominous. The author, Matt Waldman of Carr Center for Human Rights Policy of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, is quintessential establishment. He has been an Oxfam official in Kabul as well as a defence advisor to the UK and European parliaments. With little or no knowledge of Dari or Farsi, it is a miracle that he had a meaningful conversation with so may unnamed Taliban sources.

The paper concludes that Pakistan's "involvement in a double game of this scale," could have major geopolitical implications and could even provoke US counter-measures. However, the report concedes that the powerful role of the ISI, and parts of the Pakistani military requires their support. It suggests the only way to secure such co-operation is to address the, "fundamental causes of Pakistan's insecurity, especially its latent and enduring conflict with India. This requires American backing for moves towards a resolution of the Kashmir dispute."

It is obvious that commissioning of such reports and selective leaks in the Western media are meant to tighten the noose around Islamabad's neck to change its historic India-centric strategic paradigm. Implicating the Pakistani civilian government as being an active backer of the Taliban has further upped the ante.

So far as the ISI is concerned, its fine distinctions between the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, the Punjabi Taliban, the Kashmir- and India-specific Taliban and, last but not least, the good and the bad Taliban, are losing their relevance as fast as the West is losing patience in Afghanistan. In the final analysis, it is only one Taliban which is the nemesis of the West, eating into the very entrails of the state. More so for Pakistan!

The demand for the Pakistani army to start an attack against Taliban sanctuaries in North Waziristan will gain further impetus though such damning reports alleging a real or perceived nexus between the ISI and the Taliban. The ISI wants to be part of any future negotiations with the Taliban. President Karzai, opening his own channels not entirely approved by Washington, is a window of opportunity for the ISI. It puts Islamabad in a relatively advantageous position to safeguard its interests in a post US and NATO forces withdrawal from Afghanistan.

President Karzai's removal of some key anti-Pakistan officials from his cabinet has cleared the decks for some kind of role for Islamabad. Nevertheless, the ISI cannot win a popularity contest in Afghanistan where it is viewed as overbearing and interfering, but at the same time a necessity by the Pakhtuns.



The writer is a former newspaper editor. Email: arifn51@hotmail.com

 

[mjnaushad]

Ties with bad guys help get bad guys: Gen Petraeus

 

[Durran3]

Ties with bad guys help get bad guys: Gen Petraeus

By Anwar Iqbal

Saturday, 19 Jun, 2010

Gen Petraeus is the first senior US official to have publicly rejected the LSE report as incorrect.

WASHINGTON: A four-star US general, while refusing to endorse a London School of Economics report which blames Pakistan for maintaining links with the Afghan Taliban, says that “you have to have contact with bad guys to get intelligence on bad guys”.

When at a congressional hearing on Thursday a lawmaker quoted from the report to support his claim that Pakistan had links to the Afghan Taliban, Gen David Petraeus said: “Well, first of all, I don’t want to imply that I would accept the London School of Economics study or the individual who wrote that for them, his conclusions in all respects.”

A report released by the London School of Economics earlier this week claimed that support for the Afghan Taliban was “official policy” of the Inter-Services Intelligence.

Since then, experts have rejected the report as “shoddy”, based merely on interviews with Afghan intelligence officials who had their own reasons for implicating Pakistan.

Gen Petraeus, who as commander of the US Central Command oversees America’s war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, is the first senior US official to have publicly rejected the report as incorrect.

At two separate hearings at the US Senate and the House of Representatives this week he strongly defended Pakistan’s efforts to fight extremism.

When Martin Heinrich, a congressman from New Mexico, referred to the LSE report, Gen Petraeus expressed doubts about its authenticity and noted that links between Pakistani intelligence agencies and Afghans “date back decades from when we used the ISI to build the Mujahideen, who were used to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan.”

Although the US general acknowledged that “some of those ties continue in various forms”, he pointed out that such links were useful too.

“Some of them, by the way, gathering intelligence … you have to have contact with bad guys to get intelligence on bad guys. And so it’s very important, I think, again, to try to have this kind of nuanced feel for what is really going on.”

The Pakistanis, he said, also had carried out “impressive counter-insurgency operations” against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and their affiliates and in both settled and tribal areas.

They also were cooperating with the US “in a variety of ways”, which led to the killing of more than 12 out of an updated list of top 20 Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders during the last 18 months, he said.

“I do believe that the Pakistanis – the people, the leaders, the clerics, and the military – all recognise that you cannot allow poisonous snakes to have a nest in your backyard,” said the US general.

“Even if the tacit agreement is that they’re going to bite the neighbour’s kids instead of yours, eventually they turn around and bite you and your kids.”

Referring to a lawmaker who had questioned his use of the term ‘Pakistani partners,’ Gen Petraeus stressed the need for a long-term commitment to Pakistan.

“I think we have to continue what is slowly being seen by our Pakistani partners – and I say that word with sincerity – is as a sustained, substantial commitment. That is what they’re looking to see,” he said.

“There is history here. Three times before, including after Charlie Wilson’s war, we left precipitously after and left them holding the bag,” he added.

“They have enormous challenges, not just in the security arena, but in the economic arena, social, political … and it is hugely important that we be seen as partners by them and seen to be working to help them.”

Defining the US-Pakistan partnership in the war against terrorists, the general said: “They’re doing the fighting. We’re doing the enabling, with equipping, with funding … some training, intelligence exchanges, and the rest of that.”

The key in this equation, he added, was to build

Thanks Fatman for the link, I've been a big fan of both General Patraus and General Kayani.

 

[nescafe]

well, i dont support the video, but it has its point of view ... apologies if its off topic

 

[Super Falcon]

suport taiban pakistan do heel to UK thir own brothers americans negotiating with them in afghanistan these talibans have been used for a policy of west against Islam but talibans are nothing