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ISI Tells Taliban Not To Negotiate?
I am unsure about this- salt to taste:Pakistan's military spy agency ISI has warned the Taliban not to open negotiations with the Hamid Karzai regime or the US without its permission. Quoting top Pakistani security officials, New York Times said that the Taliban leaders have been warned against carrying out free-lance negotiations, where Islamabad is excluded. "The message from the ISI is: no flirting," the paper said quoting a western diplomat. GoogleNews couldn't find that phrase at the Times. Times said the warnings from the ISI to Taliban come in the backdrop of new reports that Pakistani intelligence had used CIA to capture the Taliban No 2 Mulla Abdul Ghani Baradar from the port city of Karachi in last January because they wanted to shut down secret talks that militia leaders had been conducting with Afghan government that excluded Pakistan. The paper said in the weeks after Baradar's capture, Pakistani security officials had detained as many as 23 Taliban leaders, many of whom had been enjoying the protection of Pakistan government for years. But now, Times said, the Taliban leaders who were detained had been set free to fight US forces again inside Afghanistan. Among those released include Mullah Qayoom Zakir, Abdul Kabir and Abdul Rauf Khadeem. "We picked up Baradar and others because they were trying to make a deal without us," Times quoted a senior Pakistani security official as saying. "We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians," the official told the paper. That sounds like the ISI. Times said, the account now being offered in Islamabad on Baradar's arrest highlights Pakistan's policy on Afghanistan: retaining decisive influence over the Taliban, thwarting arch enemy India and putting Pakistan in a position to shape Afghanistan post war political order. Posted by: Free Radical 2010-08-23 |
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