Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, has been sheltering a Pakistani rebel for several years, much to the annoyance of Pakistan's generals, US embassy cables show.
Brahamdagh Bugti, a leader of the nationalist insurgency in Balochistan province, emerges as a pawn in often stormy relations between Kabul and Islamabad that are spiced with intrigue and failed American efforts to broker a solution.
A stream of Pakistani demands for Bugti's return are stonewalled by Karzai; Bugti is accused of kidnapping a senior UN official; and the Islamabad CIA station chief is roped into an initiative to move Bugti to Ireland that turns out to be based on a false promise.
Bugti's case was a "neuralgic" one for Pakistani generals, Americans believed. The Bugtis are at the forefront of a rebellion that seeks greater economic and political autonomy for Balochistan, Pakistan's largest but least developed province.
The 20-something rebel fled Pakistan in 2006 after surviving a military assault that killed his grandfather, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. Since then Pakistani generals have frequently accused Kabul of secretly sheltering the young rebel.
In 2007, General Pervez Musharraf said Bugti was "enjoying freedom of movement to commute between Kabul and Kandahar, raising money and planning operations against Pakistani security forces".
When the US assistant secretary of state, Richard Boucher, said Karzai had promised that nobody would be allowed to use Afghan territory to attack Pakistan, Musharraf replied: "That's bullshit."
The controversy touches on one of the Pakistani military's core fears: that India could use Afghan-based proxy forces to foment upheaval in Pakistan.
In 2007 Musharraf said he had "ample proof" of Indian and Afghan support for Bugti; the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, said
Bugti had travelled to Delhi on a fake Afghan passport. Note the indian connection , Bugti would not get travel documents wihtout Karzai's knowledge and also india's knoweldge to where he was heading
American analysis suggests the fear of Indian meddling helps explain Pakistan's support for militant proxies such as the Afghan Taliban; a view supported by a veiled threat Musharraf issued through a US diplomat. "If India wants to continue, let's see what our options will be," he reportedly said.
Karzai, meanwhile, has refused to bend to Pakistani demands to surrender Bugti, accusing Islamabad of using the issue to deflect attention from its support of the Taliban.
"Fomenting uprising does not make one a terrorist," he said in one meeting before asking US officials to stop taking notes because the matter was "too sensitive".
In public, Afghan officials have consistently denied sheltering Bugti, but in a meeting with a senior UN official in February 2009, Karzai "finally admitted that Brahamdagh Bugti was in Kabul", the cables recorded.
The admission followed the kidnapping of a senior American UN official, John Solecki, in Balochistan. After Solecki was snatched from Quetta, Balochistan's capital, in early February,
Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, told the US he had phone intercepts that proved Bugti had orchestrated the kidnapping.
If we can reliably intercept Bugti's calls on kidnapping of the American then we surely must have other intercepts also regarding bugti getting support from india
On 15 February, the US asked the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to call Karzai , urging him to speak with Bugti and have Solecki released. Karzai agreed, but said he doubted Bugti was involved. US officials later complained that
Karzai was blocking American contact with the rebel.
Solecki was released on 4 April in Balochistan. Speaking to the Guardian by phone later that year, Bugti denied any role in the kidnapping, but admitted he was leading the fight against Pakistan's army.
"We want ownership of our own resources, our land, our coastal belt – nothing else," he said. "We want to solve this problem politically; nobody wants to use the gun. But because of what is happening the armed struggle is necessary." Bugti declined to say where he was speaking from.
Bugti supporters say he is under tight Pakistani surveillance in Kabul and so, fearing for his life, they tried to move him to safer exile last December, the cables showed.
In Islamabad, one of Bugti's uncles told US and UN officials that the "deputy prime minister" of Ireland had unofficially agreed to grant Bugti asylum. This information triggered a meeting between a senior UN official and the US ambassador.
Subsequently the CIA station chief met with the head of Pakistan's intelligence service (ISI), General Shuja Pasha, to discuss the matter. But Pasha blocked the initiative, saying Bugti should be forced to "return to Pakistan to stand trial for his crimes", and the US and UN dropped the idea.
"While getting Bugti out of Afghanistan is still a good idea, we do not believe UNHCR should be involved," the cable noted, referring to the UN refugee agency.
However, the entire scheme may have been based on nothing. The uncle told the Guardian he had never claimed to have secured asylum for his nephew in Ireland. "This is news to me," he said. "I have no knowledge or information about this."
The substantial, if publicly underplayed, US strategic interest in Balochistan is reflected in the number of cables on the province. Balochistan contains vast and largely untapped mineral resources, Taliban training camps, and is a major route for US military supplies being trucked into Afghanistan, second only to the Khyber Pass. Balochistan is also home to a secretive desert airstrip used by the CIA to launch drone attacks on al-Qaida and Taliban targets in the tribal belt.
By removing Bugti from Afghanistan US officials believe they could remove an "irritant" in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. They also fear he could be traded against other militants of greater interest.
Last February, after the arrest of the senior Taliban leader Mullah Barader in Karachi, US diplomats said to "watch out for consideration of some type of exchange of Barader with Bugti".
But Barader remains in Pakistani custody and Bugti may no longer be in Afghanistan. A senior western official in Islamabad said the rebel had applied for asylum in France, which was refused, and in Norway, where the application was pending. A senior UN official said Bugti was sheltering in the United Arab Emirates; a human rights official said he sometimes travels to Geneva. Also, the diplomats said, Pakistan's military chiefs – Kayani and Pasha – would be reluctant to lose a "huge potential propaganda pawn in Barader".
The cable said that while Bugti may be a core issue at some political level, the "truths Barader could tell about ISI not to mention a host of other Pakistani notables, likely outweigh any potential wins in bringing Bugti to Pakistani justice".
The allegations appear to be accurate. In a January 2007 meeting with assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher, Karzai said that more than 200 Bugtis had fled Pakistan into Afghanistan. He had advised them to seek asylum with the UN but many were frightened and had gone into hiding.
WikiLeaks cables reveal Afghan-Pakistani row over fugitive rebel | World news | The Guardian
