Author: Press Trust of India
Publication: Deccan Herald
Date: May 8, 2011
URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/159881/gitmo-detainees-told-us-isi.html
The ISI facilitated militants to cross the
border to carry out strikes on Indian targets chosen by the Pakistan Army,
several detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility told US interrogators, according
to a fresh set of American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.
The interrogation reports quoted a detainee
as saying that ISI "allowed" militants to travel to India where
they conducted bombings, kidnappings and killing of Kashmiri people and the
targets were picked up by the Pakistani Army.
The revelations add to Pakistan's embarrassment
after Osama bin Laden was found living at a million-dollar mansion in the
garrison city of Abbottabad.
The US was long aware of the presence of anti-India
terror training camps in Pakistan with several inmates telling investigators
how ISI allowed militants to carry attacks in India.
The disclosures are part of 779 interrogation
reports from the facility of detainees from all over the world and show how
a number of detainees were linked to anti-India Lashkar-e-Taiba and had received
terror training in Pakistan.
The reports quote detainees from countries
like Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Pakistan as telling interrogators about their
recruitment and subsequent travelling to Pakistan for terror training before
their actual deployment to launch attacks against India and also Afghanistan.
An Algerian detainee Abdul Azia admitted he
was a member of LeT for which he noted that "their mission (was) to kill
Indians in India", says a detailed report of his interrogation, released
by the whistleblower website.
"Detainee is assessed to have recruited
in Saudi Arabia and received training from the LT in Pakistan. The detainees
is further assessed to have participated in combat in Kashmir, and then travelled
to Afghanistan where he was injured," says a note about Azia.
Records of a Pakistani prisoner named Mohammad Anwer showed that he travelled
to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir where he attended an LeT training
camp for 21 days in 1998 and later served in Afghanistan.
"Detainee has been identified through
sensitive reporting as a Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence Dirctorate agent,"
the document says.
One of the reports quotes Chaman Gul, an Afghan
militant as telling investigators about Mast Gul, a former Major of the Pakistani
Army, who was "a notorious terrorist who fought in Kashmir and planned
terror attacks against a number of targets in Kabul.
Gul is closely alligned to Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), an al Qaeda linked
group and ISI Directorate.
The detainee claimed that Mast Gul controlled
all guerilla activity in Kashmir from his home base in Muzaffarabad.
