Author: AFP
Publication: BBC News
Date: June 13, 2010
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10302946.stm
Pakistani intelligence gives funding, training
and sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban on a scale much larger than previously
thought, a report says.
Taliban field commanders interviewed for the
report suggested that ISI intelligence agents even attend Taliban supreme
council meetings.
Support for the Afghan Taliban was "official
ISI policy", the London School of Economics (LSE) authors suggest.
Pakistan's military denied the claims.
A spokesman said the allegations were "rubbish"
and part of a malicious campaign against the country's military and security
agencies.
The LSE report comes at the end of one of
the deadliest weeks for Nato troops in Afghanistan, with more than 30 soldiers
killed.
'Double game'
Links between the Taliban and Pakistan's intelligence
service have long been suspected, but the report's author - Harvard analyst
Matt Waldman - says there is real evidence of extensive co-operation between
the two.
"This goes far beyond just limited, or
occasional support," he said. "This is very significant levels of
support being provided by the ISI.
"We're also saying this is official policy
of that agency, and we're saying that it is very extensive. It is both at
an operational level, and at a strategic level, right at the senior leadership
of the Taliban movement."
Mr Waldman spoke to nine Taliban field commanders
in Afghanistan earlier this year.
Some alleged that ISI agents had even attended
meetings of the Taliban's top leadership council, the so-called Quetta shura.
They claim that by backing the insurgents Pakistan's security service is trying
to undermine Indian influence in Afghanistan.
"These accounts were corroborated by
former Taliban ministers, a Western analyst and a senior UN official based
in Kabul, who said the Taliban largely depend on funding from the ISI and
groups in Gulf countries," the report said.
With US troops due to begin leaving next year,
Pakistan and other regional players are increasingly seeking ways to assert
their influence in Afghanistan, analysts say.
Pakistan has long been accused of using the
Taliban to further its foreign policy interests in the country. The ISI first
became involved in funding and training militants in Afghanistan after the
Soviet invasion in 1979.
Since 2001, however, it has been a key US
ally, receiving billions of dollars in aid in return for helping fight al-Qaeda
"Pakistan appears to be playing a double-game
of astonishing magnitude," the report says.
'No proof'
But Islamabad says it is working with its
international partners in hunting down the Taliban.
And the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan,
Abdul Salam Zaeef, says there is no proof of a link between the ISI and the
Afghan Taliban.
"I have no proof that Pakistan is supporting
the Taliban," he told the BBC, "or that the ISI is providing money
to them... or other support to provide weapons."
Even so, Pakistan's role in Afghanistan is
viewed as critical.
Last week Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah
Saleh resigned, saying he had become an obstacle to plans to talk to the Taliban.
Mr Saleh told Reuters news agency a day after
quitting that the ISI was "part of the landscape of destruction"
in Afghanistan and accused Pakistan of sheltering Taliban leaders in safe
houses.
Pakistan has always denied such claims and
points to arrests and military offensives against the militants on its side
of the border. Nevertheless, parts of the tribal north-west of Pakistan bordering
Afghanistan remain strongholds for the militants.
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says
there is a growing understanding that military action alone will not be enough
to bring peace in Afghanistan.
"Without a change in Pakistani behaviour
it will be difficult if not impossible for international forces and the Afghan
government to make progress against the insurgency," the report concludes.