‘Secret’ leaked: Pakistan stoking Taliban insurgency: NATO

Report says ISI ‘intimately involved’; Taliban dismiss the report as ‘rumours’.

The timing of the leaked report coincides with a visit to Kabul by Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar aimed at mending ties strained by last year’s assassination of top Afghan peace negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani.

The report – leaked to The Times newspaper and the BBC – blamed Pakistan’s security services for ‘secretly aiding Afghanistan’s Taliban,’ who assume their victory is inevitable once Western troops leave.

Compiled from information gleaned from insurgent detainees, the report was given to Nato commanders in Afghanistan last month, media reports said.

The ‘State of the Taliban’ document claims that Pakistan’s premier spy agency the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is ‘intimately involved’ with the insurgency.

The BBC said that the report was based on material from 27,000 interrogations of more than 4,000 captured Taliban and al Qaeda operatives.

“Pakistan’s manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly,” the report was quoted as saying.

Taliban captives revealed how Islamabad was using a web of intermediaries and spies to provide strategic advice to the Taliban on fighting Western coalition troops.

“The government of Pakistan remains intimately involved with the Taliban,” the report states again.

“ISI is thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of senior Taliban personnel. Senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel, who advise on strategy and relay any pertinent concerns of the government of Pakistan,” it added. “ISI officers tout the need for continued jihad and expulsion of foreign invaders from Afghanistan.”

However, there was little evidence from the detainees that Islamabad was providing funding or weaponry.

The Times quoted the report 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.”

Pentagon says ‘no comment’

The US Department of Defence said it could not comment on the report but set out its fears about Pakistan and its influence in Afghanistan.

“We have not seen the report, and therefore cannot offer comment on it specifically,” Pentagon spokesman George Little told AFP. “We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks.”

The report said there had been unprecedented interest in joining the Taliban cause in 2011 – even from members of the Afghan government.

“Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption,” it was reported as saying.

It said the Taliban were deliberately going soft in some areas to encourage Nato troops to leave faster, while doing local deals with the Afghan forces who take over.

Some in the Afghan security forces collaborated with the Taliban, selling arms and sharing intelligence, the report said.

Taliban call it ‘rumours’

The Taliban dismissed the Nato report as ‘rumours’.

“We have been hearing such rumours for the past 10 years. These are used as a propaganda tool,” their spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told The Express Tribune in an email response to a query.

“We categorically reject the Nato report,” Mujahid said. “Our Jihad continues with the support of the Afghan people,” he added.“We will inflict a defeat on the enemy with the help of Allah Almighty.”

(Read: A thaw in Pak-Afghan ties?)

(with additional reporting by Tahir Khan in Islamabad)

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2012.

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