Hindu Vivek Kendra
A RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE PROMOTION OF HINDUTVA
   
 
 
«« Back
Ally Or Playing Both Sides? Some Question Allegiiance Of Pakistani Spy Agency

Ally Or Playing Both Sides? Some Question Allegiiance Of Pakistani Spy Agency

Author: John Daniszewski, Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times
Publication: San Francisco Chronicle
Date: October 30, 2001
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/10/30/MN62581.DTL

Quetta, Pakistan -- Behind a dusty gray wall in the military district here works an organization with the secret knowledge that could spell success or doom for U. S. military operations against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

Mysterious and powerful, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has been called a state within a state. It has been the largely hidden hand in Afghan politics for more than two decades, working with the CIA to defeat occupying Soviet forces and then, on its own, funneling arms and advice to help the Taliban movement become Afghanistan's master in 1996.

Back then, the Taliban's victory was viewed as ISI's crowning success and a breakthrough for Pakistani interests. But under American pressure after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, Pakistan concluded that the Taliban were too hot to be tolerated, and the ISI was told to turn on its former friends.

Some accuse the agency of playing a double game ever since, pretending to help while quietly allowing weapons to flow into Afghanistan after Sept. 11, encouraging Pakistani religious parties to rally support for the Taliban and turning a blind eye to many volunteers from Pakistan going across the Afghan border to fight against U.S. forces.

"We now see in retrospect the tragic folly of entrusting our Afghan policy to the ISI -- an institution full of intelligence but devoid of wisdom," wrote M.P. Bhandara, a former member of the National Assembly, in the daily newspaper Dawn.

With the United States desperate to woo at least some prominent defectors from the Taliban and to learn the whereabouts of bin Laden and other leaders of his terror network, the ISI's importance is difficult to overstate. If the agency tells everything it knows, few believe that the Taliban will be able to hold out.

"I am of the opinion that not a needle in Afghanistan is secret from the ISI," said Mehmood Achakzai, a leading politician in Quetta from the Pashtun ethnic group, which fills Taliban ranks. "The Taliban cannot survive for three days without our patronage."

But it is a big if, and some Pakistanis and Western diplomats view the ISI as at best a reluctant ally in the war on terrorism.

According to sources in Pakistan's Afghan refugee community, the ISI has made efforts to enlist new clients inside Afghanistan to help overthrow the Taliban, as shown by a meeting arranged in the Pakistani city of Peshawar last week of former mujahedeen willing to become Taliban opponents.

Whether the Islamic movement was the stepchild of the ISI or the ISI simply adopted a new indigenous force with obvious potential, it is clear that the Taliban presented many advantages for Pakistan at the time.

Riding on the unifying banner of strict adherence to Sunni Islam, the faith of most Afghans and Pakistanis, the Taliban could rise above the internecine warfare that had ripped Afghanistan apart and restore stability. Then, Pakistan would be able to open more direct trade routes to Central Asia.

The Taliban also would give Pakistan a friendly Pashtun-led regime to the west while it faced its traditional enemy, India, to the east.

The Taliban's alliance with bin Laden also gave the ISI access to al-Qaeda training camps, according to Pakistani officials. The agency sent Muslim militants to train in Afghanistan for guerrilla actions in Kashmir, a region claimed by India and Pakistan.

The then-director of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, was in the United States on Sept. 11. According to Pakistani sources, he was given an ultimatum by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that Pakistan must assist in the war against terror. From the first, the U.S. demands included full sharing of ISI intelligence about the Taliban and bin Laden.

Within days, Mahmood was sent by Musharraf on the first of two missions to Afghanistan. The aim, as defined by the president, was to make it clear to Taliban leaders that they would face U.S. attack unless they turned over bin Laden.

Mahmood came back empty-handed. But the choice of messenger was significant:

Taliban officials heard that they were facing elimination from the head of the agency that had been their staunchest supporter in the war against the erstwhile government of Afghanistan, now the opposition Northern Alliance.

But when did ISI actually stop helping the regime?

One Pakistan-based diplomat said it was widely accepted that a Taliban supply line carrying arms and other war supplies ran from Pakistan into Afghanistan, even after United Nations sanctions against the Taliban were imposed in January for the regime's failure to heed a deadline to surrender bin Laden and shut down terrorist camps. The supply line continued, the diplomat said, for weeks after Sept. 11.

If such shipments were taking place, it is unclear whether top officials of the ISI knew of them.

The unmistakable signal that the ISI's policy had reversed came Oct. 7, the day the U.S. bombing campaign began. Musharraf suddenly replaced Mahmood as director-general of the agency with Lt. Gen. Ehsanul Haq, who reportedly is more willing to carry out an anti-Taliban policy.  The shake-up was accompanied by a purge of the middle ranks of the ISI, to remove officers deemed too close to the Taliban, the former operative said.
 


Back                          Top

«« Back
 
 
 
  Search Articles
 
  Special Annoucements