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| India-Pakistan |
| CIA Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants |
| 2008-07-30 |
| WASHINGTON -- A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan's most senior officials with new information about ties between the country's powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan's tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials. The CIA emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said. The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new CIA assessment of the spy service's activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants. The CIA assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal areas. The CIA has depended heavily on the ISI for information about militants in Pakistan, despite longstanding concerns about divided loyalties within the Pakistani spy service, which had close relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks. That ISI officers have maintained important ties to anti-American militants has been the subject of previous reports in The New York Times. But the CIA and the Bush administration have generally sought to avoid criticism of Pakistan, which they regard as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #3 not believable It would be slightly funnier had he actually used the word "inconceivable". |
| Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats 2008-07-30 14:33 |
| #2 Either pakistna will have to fix this or we will end up having to "fix" Pakistan. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-30 12:10 |
| #1 Mr. Gilani said he rejected as "not believable" any assertions of ISI's links to the militants. "We would not allow that," he said. Looks like he wants Baghdad Bob's job? |
| Posted by: john frum 2008-07-30 11:13 |