Author: PTI
Publication: The Hindu
Date: May 10, 2011
URL: http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/09/stories/2011050964031400.htm
The Pakistan spy agency helped militants cross
the border to attack targets chosen by the Army
The Inter-Services Intelligence (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
U.S. interrogators, according to a fresh set of American diplomatic cables
released by WikiLeaks.
The interrogation reports quoted a detainee
as saying that the ISI "allowed" militants to travel to India where
they conducted bombings, kidnappings and killing of Kashmiri people.
The revelations add to Pakistan's embarrassment
after al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was found living in a million-dollar
mansion in the garrison city of Abbottabad.
The U.S. was long aware of the presence of
anti-India terror training camps in Pakistan with several inmates telling
investigators how the ISI allowed militants to carry out 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 them were linked to the anti-Indian Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and
had received terror training in Pakistan.
The reports quote detainees from countries
such as Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Pakistan as telling interrogators about
their recruitment and subsequent travelling to Pakistan for terror training
before their actual deployment for launching attacks against India and Afghanistan.
An Algerian detainee Abdul Azia admitted he
was a member of the 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 been recruited
in Saudi Arabia and received training from the LeT in Pakistan. The detainee
is further assessed to have participated in a 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 a LeT training camp for 21 days in 1998 and later served
in Afghanistan.
"Detainee has been identified through
sensitive reporting as a Pakistani ISI Directorate 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."
The detainee claimed that Mast Gul controlled all guerilla activities in Kashmir
from his home base in Muzaffarabad. Chaman said militants were deployed for
three to four months and then asked to return.
He said that as member of Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin,
he was part of a plan to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the
U.S. Ambassador.
One detainee Yacoub claimed that he had got
a security job in the Afghan government, and another said he was an informant
for the British intelligence service.
India as platform
In another such assessment report, a senior
al-Qaeda operative was said to be planning to use Indians for terror attacks
because of the low-level of scrutiny Indians are subjected to in the western
nations.
"Detainee admitted that he had considered
using India as a platform to send operatives to the U.S. or the U.K. because
of the large Muslim population there and the low level of scrutiny given to
travellers of Indian nationality," the document on Abu al-Libbi says.
