NATO Report Says ISI Keeps Taliban Fighting Fit
Washington: The US said it has “long standing concerns” over ISI’s links with the Taliban and wants Pakistan to “cut-off” those ties, hours after a Nato report blew the lid off the intelligence agency’s “manipulation” of Afghan Taliban’s senior leadership.
Pentagon spokesperson Navy Capt John Kirby told reporters during an off-camera briefing that the facts laid bare by the damning report were “not a new notion” and these concerns have been raised earlier as well.
“This is not a new notion, we made those concerns clear and the Secretary Clinton has been very clear about the ongoing problem of safe havens inside Pakistan for these groups,” Kirby said referring to a new Nato report on Taliban which says that the ISI continues to help the extremist group, which wants to come back to power in Afghanistan.
“We have made it clear already that Pakistan needs to act against safe heavens. We would like ties between some elements of ISI and Taliban to be cut-off,” he said.
Kirk said the US had “longstanding concerns” about the ties between the elements of the ISI and the Taliban but did not give details on what elements of the ISI he was referring to.
The secret NATO report that was leaked to the BBC and The Times Of London, contain damning details of the ISI-Taliban relationship. The report has been derived from thousands of interrogations of captured Taliban, al Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.
According to the BBC, the leaked report notes “Pakistan manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly.”
The BBC report cited its correspondent in Kabul, Quentin Sommerville, who called the report “painful reading” for international forces fighting in Afghanistan, and the Afghan government.
The report claims that Pakistan and its ISI intelligence agency are aware of the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
“ISI officers tout the need for continued jihad and expulsion of foreign invaders from Afghanistan.”
The Times newspaper, which also saw the report, quoted it as saying the Taliban’s “strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact”, despite setbacks in 2011.
“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” it said.
“Once (Nato force) ISAF is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable.”
Kabul, which accuses Islamabad of supporting the 10-year Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, put relations on ice after the September murder of its peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani, which one Afghan minister blamed on Pakistani spies
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