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| India-Pakistan |
| The need to weed out |
| 2008-08-06 |
| The constantly accumulating evidence that the Taliban are being supported by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency should induce the civilian government of Pakistan to renew its efforts to take charge of the ISI. The suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7, which killed two Indian diplomats and 58 other people, has heightened international indignation about Pakistan's involvement with the Taliban. Last week, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that ISI helped plan that attack. A spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry dismissed that report as "absolute rubbish," while an ISI spokesman called it "malicious propaganda." But Sherry Rehman, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, an MP for the Pakistan Peoples Party, gave a more encouraging response, acknowledging that, though there was no proof that the ISI took part in the Kabul bombing, some ISI agents were indeed supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan. Previously, Pervez Musharraf, the former military dictator who is still the President, had admitted only that retired ISI agents might be implicated with the Taliban. It is not clear to what extent ISI agents favour the Taliban out of sincere attachment to Islamist extremism, and to what extent they aid and abet in pursuit of a 60-year-old struggle against India for power in the region, an echo of "the great game" in the imperial past. Whatever the mixture of motives, there is no doubt that Pakistan was a major factor in the initial organization of the Taliban as a political and military force. Ms. Rehman said of Taliban sympathizers in the ISI that the Pakistani government "needs to identify these people and weed them out." This is a promising statement after the embarrassing setback last month, when Prime Yousuf Raza Gilani tried to move the ISI out from under the control of the military, making it answerable to the civilian Interior Ministry. But Mr. Musharraf swiftly vetoed the change. The recently elected civilian government, though it is based on a shaky coalition, must set aside its minor political squabbles, and persist in taking strenuous efforts to stabilize both Pakistan and the surrounding region. |
| Posted by:Fred |