Author: Chidanand Rajghatta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: May 3, 2002
In a remarkably candid disclosure,
a Pakistani official has implicated the spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) for covertly aiding terrorist suspect Sheikh Omar Saeed during his
incarceration in India on charges of kidnapping western tourists.
The Washington Post, citing an unnamed
Pakistani official, said in a report from Islamabad on Friday that when
Saeed faced the kidnapping charges in 1994 his attorneys were paid by ISI.
Specifically, the ISI station chief in Pakistan's London embassy paid the
legal fees, the official disclosed to the paper. The ISI operative was
not named.
Sheikh Omar Saeed is long suspected
to have ISI links, but this is the first time Pakistan officials have confirmed
the fact. When Saeed emerged as a suspect in the murder of Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl case, he surrendered voluntarily to Ejaz
Shah, a former top ISI official who is now home secretary of Punjab province.
The episode raised eyebrows in Washington
because the surrender was not disclosed for nearly a week until Gen Musharraf
met President Bush in the White House. Shortly before the meeting Islamabad
announced that it had "captured" Omar.
Pakistan has never clearly explained
why his surrender was kept a secret and what transpired during the time
he was in custody. At the same time, Musharraf has implied several times
that Pearl was caught up in intelligence matters.
One possible explanation for the
unexpected disclosure implicating the ISI now is that there is a struggle
going on within the Pakistani establishment with one section trying to
cleanse the spy agency of rogue elements. This section has been periodically
leaking stories to the media against the ISI.
The Indian government has long charged
that the ISI has been promoting and protecting terrorists in India, but
this the first time it has had the good fortune of Pakistani officials
themselves confirming it. The fact that Saeed was being held on charges
of kidnapping western tourists while the ISI was trying to bail him out
could put the widely-reviled agency into further trouble.
More recently, there have been some
articles in the Pakistani media suggesting that the ISI was being unfairly
targeted and it is not as sinister an organisation it is made out to be.
There have also been conflicting reports as to whether General Musharraf
is completely in command of the agency and whether the purges he is said
to have instituted have worked.
While the Bush administration has
not publicly taken up the issue of Omar Saeed's mysterious surrender and
secret custody, some US experts and lawmakers have questioned Washington's
kid glove treatment of ISI's involvement in terrorist activity. They say
the administration's reluctance to press Pakistan to end terrorism in Kashmir
while forcing its hand in Afghanistan could come back later to haunt the
United States because the two fronts are essentially the same.
"Musharraf has created a double
standard where he fights against terrorism globally, but winks at terrorist
activity locally," says New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone. "There is
no accountability for terrorist activity in Pakistan or Kashmir. Musharraf
is reversing his crackdown on terrorists, and terrorist groups that formerly
existed are now rejoining other groups under new names."