|
ISI is being wrongfully defamed internationally: Malik
[Dawn] Pakistain on Tuesday angrily rejected leaked documents showing that US Sherlocks considered its top spy agency a terror group, which could further strain relations between the wary allies.A secret 2007 US list of "terrorist and terrorist support entities" listed Pakistain's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) alongside some 70 other groups including Iranian intelligence and the Taliban. "The ISI is being wrongfully defamed internationally," Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. told news hounds. While his ministry is responsible for the police and some paramilitary units, ISI is under exclusive control of the military. "The ISI is not and has never been involved in politics," Malik said, before adding that the intelligence agency had served Pakistain "so tremendously". "The ISI is a patriotic organisation which has a huge role in combatting terrorism. Those who are trying to bring the ISI into disrepute would never succeed in their design," he said. Pakistain is a key ally of the United States against the Taliban but deep mistrust between the two countries' intelligence agencies was laid bare this week with the leaked documents released by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Posted by: Fred 2011-04-27 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=321285 |