Top Pak leaders backing Taliban, says LSE study
Ashis Ray | TNN
London: Is the West being led up the garden path in its war on terror by Pakistan? At least this is what a study released by the London School of Economics, one of world’s top 10 universities, suggests, with its author, Matt Waldman, also saying top Pakistani civilian leaders aggressively support terrorist organisations that operate in Indian Kashmir.
Matt Waldman, a Harvard University analyst who wrote the account, told the UK’s Sunday Times: “This report is consistent with Pakistan’s political history in which civilian leaders actively backed jihadi groups that operate in Afghanistan and Kashmir.’’
On Afghanistan, which is the primary focus of the LSE’s fact finding, Waldman’s research reveals: “By backing the insurgents, Pakistan’s security service (Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI) is trying to undermine Indian influence in Afghanistan.’’
The LSE report also accused Zardari of recently visiting captured Taliban leaders to assure them that the Taliban had his government’s full support. Zardari’s spokesman, however, denied it. “There’s no such thing. This never happened.’’ DOUBLE GAME
LSE report: 7 of Taliban’s top 15 men are ISI agents
London: A report commissioned by the London School of Economics emphasizes that “without a change in Pakistani behaviour, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for international forces and the Afghan government to make progress against the insurgency”.
Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude, the report’s author, Matt Waldman, says, stressing there is real evidence of extensive cooperation between the Taliban and the ISI. The latter is said to compensate families of suicide bombers to the tune of 200,000 Pakistani rupees.
“We’re also saying this is
official policy of that agency (ISI). It (assistance) is both at an operational level, and at a strategic level,” he asserts. This is substantiated by former Taliban ministers and a senior UN official based in Kabul. Waldman said he spoke to nine Taliban commanders.
Up to seven of the Afghan Taliban leaders who constitute a 15-man shura are said to be ISI agents. The report says interviews strongly suggest that the ISI has representatives on the shura, either as participants or observers, and the agency is involved at the highest levels of the movement.
Two shura members who receive the strongest support from the ISI are reported to be Taib Agha, former spokesman of Mullah Omar, the Taliban supreme commander who has been absconding since 2001, and Mullah Hassan Rahmani, the former Taliban governor of Kandahar.
Major General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s military spokesman, predictably called the claims “baseless”.
