Pakistani military intelligence not only funds and trains Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, but is officially represented on the movement’s leadership council, giving it significant influence over operations, a report said.
The report, published by the London School of Economics yesterday said research strongly suggested support for the Taliban was the “official policy” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).
Although links between the ISI and Islamist militants have been widely suspected for a long time, the report’s findings, which it said were corroborated by two senior Western security officials, could raise more concerns in the West over Pakistan’s commitment to help end the war in Afghanistan.
The report also said Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was reported to have visited senior Taliban prisoners in Pakistan earlier this year, where he is believed to have promised their release and help for militant operations, suggesting support for the Taliban “is approved at the highest level of Pakistan’s civilian government.”
A Pakistani diplomatic source described that report as “naive,” and also said any talks with the Taliban were up to the Afghan government.
“Pakistan appears to be playing a double-game of astonishing magnitude,” said the report, based on interviews with Taliban commanders and former senior Taliban ministers as well as Western and Afghan security officials.
In March last year, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, said they had indications elements in the ISI supported the Taliban and al-Qaeda and said the agency must end such activities.
Nevertheless, senior Western officials have been reluctant to talk publicly on the subject for fear of damaging possible cooperation from Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state Washington has propped up with billions of dollars in military and economic aid.
“The Pakistan government’s apparent duplicity — and awareness of it among the American public and political establishment — could have enormous geopolitical implications,” said the report’s author, Matt Waldman, a fellow at Harvard University. “Without a change in Pakistani behavior, it will be difficult if not impossible for international forces and the Afghan government to make progress against the insurgency.”
The report comes at the end of one of the bloodiest weeks for foreign troops in Afghanistan — more than 21 were killed last week — and at a time when the insurgency is at its most violent.
More than 1,800 foreign troops, including 1,100 Americans, have died in Afghanistan since US-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001. The war has already cost the US about US$300 billion and now costs more than US$70 billion a year, the report said, citing last year’s US Congressional research figures.
The report said interviews with Taliban commanders in some of the most violent regions in Afghanistan “suggest that Pakistan continues to give extensive support to the insurgency in terms of funding, munitions and supplies.”
“These accounts were corroborated by former Taliban ministers, a Western analyst and a senior UN official based in Kabul, who said the Taliban largely depend on funding from the ISI and groups in Gulf countries,” the report said.
Almost all of the Taliban commanders interviewed in the report also believed the ISI was represented on the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s supreme leadership council based in Pakistan.
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