ISI arming and training us, claim ‘Taliban commanders’

Commanders describe links in interviews with BBC; Pak military denies allegations.

LONDON:

Amidst a fresh intrusion by Nato helicopters into Pakistani territory, purported Taliban commanders said on Wednesday that they get weapons and training from Pakistani military spy agency to fight foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Notwithstanding a quick denial from the Pakistani military, the allegations could potentially worsen the normalising ties between Pakistan and the US following months of political rhetoric and belligerent statements from US officials.

A number of middle-ranking Taliban commanders revealed the extent of Pakistani support in interviews for a BBC Two documentary series – “Secret Pakistan” – the first part of which was broadcast on Wednesday.

One Taliban commander, Mullah Qaseem, told the BBC that the important things for a fighter were supplies and a hiding place. “Pakistan plays a significant role. First they support us by providing a place to hide which is really important. Secondly, they provide us with weapons,” he said, according to excerpts provided by the BBC.

Other Taliban commanders described how they and their fighters were, and are, trained in a network of camps on Pakistani soil.

According to a commander using the name Mullah Azizullah, the experts running the training are either members of the ISI or have close links to it.

“They are all ISI men. They are the ones who run the training. First they train us about bombs; then they give us practical guidance,” he said.

Another Taliban fighter, known as Commander Najib, said al Qaeda trainers also operated in the camps, talent spotting possible suicide bombers.

“I was in the camp for a month ... They were giving us practical training in whatever weapons we specialised in ... suicide bombers were taken to a different section and kept apart from us. Those who were taught to be suicide bombers were there,” he said.

A former head of Afghan intelligence told the BBC Afghan officials gave former president Pervez Musharraf information in 2006 suggesting Bin Laden was hiding in Mansehra, a town just 20 kilometres from Abbottabad, but that the information was not acted upon.

Amrullah Saleh, head of the Afghan intelligence from 2004 to 2010, said Syed Akbar, a Pakistani believed to be smuggling guns to the Taliban, told the Afghan intelligence he had escorted Bin Laden from one location to another.

“The information we had was suggesting Mansehra was the town where Bin Laden was hiding ... after so many years, it turns out that Bin Laden was about 12 miles from that location,” he said.

Saleh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai took the evidence to Musharraf who, according to Saleh, reacted angrily.

“He [Musharraf] banged the table and looked at President Karzai and said, ‘am I president of a banana republic? If not, then how can you tell me Bin Laden is hiding in a settled area of Pakistan?’ I said ‘well, this is the information so you can go and check it’,” Saleh said.

The BBC said Pakistan strongly denied the allegations made in the programme.

The chief military spokesperson, Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, told the BBC: “To say that these militant groups were being supported by the state with the organised camps in these areas ... I think nothing could be further from the truth.”

The US is ratcheting up pressure on Pakistan asking the country to squeeze the militants in their ‘safe havens’ in the tribal regions. In an apparent move to bludgeon Islamabad into compliance, thousands of Nato and Afghan troops amassed on the border with North Waziristan.

On Wednesday Pakistani officials accused Nato helicopters of violating Pakistan’s air space over the North Waziristan Agency.

“Two helicopters intruded several kilometres inside Pakistani territory in Datta Khel town around 2:00 am,” an unnamed military official told AFP.

The helicopters flew in from the Afghan province of Paktia and circled the border village of Zoi Nara for more than five minutes, the official in Peshawar said.

But a spokesman for Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) told AFP that their “operational reporting” showed that no Isaf helicopter crossed the border, which is unmarked in many places.

A Pakistani military official said the choppers left after “warning shots” were fired by Pakistani troops. Officials said they were not attack helicopters.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2011.