Author: Agencies
Publication: IBNLive.com
Date: August 15, 2007
URL: http://www.ibnlive.com/news/taliban-is-pak-product-america-exposes-ally/46884-2-7.html
Declassified American documents reveal that
Islamabad funded, armed and advised the Taliban, the militant Islamic group
in Afghanistan.
The National Security Archives of the George
Washington University on Wednesday published government documents which prove
America knew of Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban during the seven-year
period leading up to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The revelation comes after Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf's admitted some day ago that there is "no doubt"
Afghan militants are supported from Pakistani soil.
"While Musharraf admitted the Taliban
were being sheltered in the lawless frontier border regions, the declassified
US documents released today clearly illustrate that the Taliban was directly
funded, armed and advised by Islamabad itself," the National Security
Archives said in a statement.
The government documents, obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act, also detailed US concerns about Pakistani troops
training and fighting alongside the Taliban inside
Afghanistan.
"The records represent the most complete
and comprehensive collection of declassified documentation to date on Pakistan's
aid programmes to the Taliban, illustrating Islamabad's firm commitment to
a Taliban victory in Afghanistan," the Archives said.
The Archives also pointed out is that these
new documents also support and inform the findings of a recently-released
CIA intelligence estimate characterising Pakistan's tribal areas as a safe
haven for al-Qaeda terrorists.
"Declassified State Department cables
and US intelligence reports describe the use of Taliban terrorist training
areas in Afghanistan by Pakistani-supported militants in Kashmir, as well
as Pakistan's covert effort to supply Pashtun troops from its tribal regions
to the Taliban cause in Afghanistan-effectively forging and reinforcing Pashtun
bonds across the border and consolidating the Taliban's severe form of Islam
throughout Pakistan's frontier region," the Archives said.
Even though Islamabad denies that it ever
provided military support to the Taliban, the documents reveal that in the
weeks following the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996, Pakistan's intelligence
agency was "supplying the Taliban forces with munitions, fuel, and food,"
the Archives said.
Pakistan's Interservice Intelligence Directorate
was "using a private sector transportation company to funnel supplies
into Afghanistan and to the Taliban forces," it said.
The documents point to a September 2000 cable
cited in the 9/11 Commission Report which noted that Pakistan's aid to the
Taliban has reached "unprecedented" levels, including reports that
Islamabad haD possibly allowed the Taliban to use territory in Pakistan for
military operations.
Furthermore the US has "seen reports
that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical
assistance and military advisors," the Archives said.
