Author: Wilson John
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 7, 2011
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/336916/Time-to-declare-ISI-a-global-terrorist-entity.html
America ignored evidence of Pakistan being
a rogue state for over decade - to its own peril. But after Sunday's Abbottabad
operation, Washington has to answer to the community of nations why the ISI
shouldn't be declared a terrorist entity
Even the last excuse for not declaring Pakistan
Army and its intelligence arm, Inter Services Intelligence Directorate, as
global terrorist entities, disappeared with the two bullets that killed world's
most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, in a house adjacent to Pakistan Military
Academy in Abbottabad, just about two hours drive from the ISI headquarters
in Aabpara, Islamabad.
As per the guidelines prescribed by the UN
Security Council Committee Concerning al Qaeda and the Taliban and Associated
Individuals and Entities (Resolution 1267{1999}), five conditions are necessary
for any entity to be listed under the Sanctions List of Terrorist Entities
- 1) Participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or
perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name
of, on behalf of, or in support of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or the Taliban,
or any cell, affiliate, splinter group or derivative thereof; 2) supply, selling
or transferring arms and related material AQ, OBL or the Taliban, or any cell,
affiliate, splinter group, or derivative thereof; 3) recruiting for AQ, OBL,
or the Taliban or any cell, affiliate etc: 4) otherwise supporting acts or
activities of AQ, OBL, or the Taliban etc; and 5) Other acts and activity
associated with AQ, OBL, or the Taliban, etc.
Participating in the financing, planning:
The fact that Osama bin Laden was living in the protective custody of ISI
for over five years should fulfil this first condition. There may be doubts
about how much did the Army know about the US Special Forces' covert action
in Abbottabad in the wee hours of May 2 but there cannot be any doubt that
the Army was well aware of Laden's safe house near the military academy. Abbottabad
is not only a garrison town but also the headquarters of a Brigade belonging
to Army's 2nd Artillery Div. (Gujranwala XXX Corps). Interestingly, it also
houses Army's Mountain Warfare School where Special Services Group commandos
are trained in HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) courses. Several senior retired
Army officers have residences in the district which also has quite a few military
establishments and officers' messes.
A mysterious building of the magnitude of
the Waziristan Haveli, as the locals called it, could not have come up without
alerting the local intelligence, Army and police officials. By all accounts,
the Waziristan Manzil was constructed in 2005, a period when Pakistan Army
chief General Ashfaq Kayani was the head of ISI and was part of the CIA-ISI
operation to hunt down Osama bin Laden. Kayani, who succeeded in getting close
to General Pervez Musharraf, and Pentagon after the 9/11 attacks, was largely
instrumental in protecting ISI's 'strategic assets' among the terrorist groups.
One such asset, as recent events have revealed, was al Qaeda chief Osama bin
Laden.
The direct role of ISI and Pakistan in the
Mumbai attacks of November 2008 and the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy
in Kabul should be regarded as 'perpetrating of acts' in conjunction with
AQ, Laden and Taliban. The aim of both the attacks was to help AQ and Taliban
escape the intense military offensive launched by the western forces in Afghanistan-Pakistan
areas by creating a 'hot spot' elsewhere.
Supplying, selling or transferring arms to
AQ, Taliban: Besides Osama bin Laden, Pakistan Army and ISI have been hand
in glove with the Taliban for over 10 years, helping them with safe houses,
recruitment bases, training and weapons. Their alliances have been effectively
documented not only by the Indian security agencies but also by different
western security and intelligence agencies. Of the several documented nexus
between the Taliban-al Qaeda and ISI, a less known instance is worth quoting
here. Well known Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid quoted a North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO) report on Operation Medusa (September 4-17, 2006) in Panjwal
district, Afghanistan, which accused the ISI of shoring up the Taliban's military
capability. So intense was the firefight that the Taliban, according to NATO,
used 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,000
mortar shells. The ammunition dumps discovered by the NATO and Afghan forces
revealed that the Taliban had over 2 million rounds of ammunition in Panjwal
alone. The NATO force captured 160 Taliban, most of them Pakistanis who detailed
the ISI's support for the Taliban, including setting up two training camps
outside Quetta. It was also revealed that the Taliban recruits were housed
and indoctrinated in madrassas run by radical groups supported by ISI.
Recruiting for AQ, Taliban and affiliates:
It was during Kayani's tenure as DG ISI that new training camps were set up
in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for terrorists leaving for Kashmir and Afghanistan.
In June 2006, reports emerged about the fresh recruitment drive launched by
the terrorist groups and the sprouting of training camps. Dozens of aspiring
recruits from Khyber Pakhtunwa and FATA towns were sent each month to training
camps in Wana in South Waziristan. According to the report, at least three
major terrorist groups maintained their liaison and recruitment offices in
the Timergara area of Lower Dir District. These included the Hizb-ul Mujahideen
(HM), Al Badr Mujahideen, renamed as Al Suffa Foundation, and LeT, renamed
as Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). For instance, after the October 2005 earthquake in
Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) when terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba
(LeT) lost their training infrastructure and other facilities it was ISI which
facilitated the mass transfer of LeT cadre and leadership to safer areas of
Dir and Upper Dir in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. These camps were utilised to recruit
cadres for the Taliban and al Qaeda forces fighting the western alliance in
Afghanistan.
Supporting AQ, Taliban etc: In fact, Kayani,
contrary to the image he has managed to create in the western capitals of
a professional soldier, has been assiduously cultivating terrorist groups
as 'combat reserves', protecting them from international scrutiny and allowing
them to recoup and regroup in different parts of Pakistan. When al Qaeda and
Taliban leaders and cadre fled the US bombing of their hideouts in Afghanistan
after 9/11, Kayani was the Director General of Military Operations in charge
of the US-Pakistan alliance in the Global War on Terror. It is now fairly
well documented that al Qaeda and Taliban managed to eke out a sanctuary on
both sides of Durand Line between 2002 and 2007, the period when Kayani was
DGMO and DG ISI.
As DG ISI, Kayani was also responsible for
the release of over 2,000 terrorists arrested from different parts of Pakistan
on American insistence. Among them were Harkat-ul Mujahideen chief Fazlur
Rehman Kahlil (December 2004) and Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami chief Qari Saifullah
Akhtar (May 2007), two of the Afghan jihad veterans who were instrumental
in reorganising terrorist strategies and operations on behalf of the Army.
Akhtar was an adviser to Taliban chief Mullah Omar till October 2001. No less
important is the fact that a close confidante of Akhtar was Illyas Kashmiri,
whose role in several recent terrorist incidents is no secret.
In fact, there is no dearth of evidence to
prove that Pakistan and ISI could be declared as terrorist entities. The Abbottabad
incident has only added weight to an urgent need to impose severe sanctions
on these two entities if the world wanted to be rid of the scourge of terrorism.
- Wilson John is Vice-President and Senior
Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi
