Evidence against Pakistan

[Guest guest]

Material evidence on Pak's Taliban links

HT Political Bureau

(New Delhi, September 18)

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India has shown the United States evidence of Pakistan's close ties

with the Taliban. Intelligence provided by India shows that

Islamabad's claim that it has no leverage with the Taliban is

untenable.

The US wishlist, given to Pakistan after Black Tuesday, may have been

influenced by this information. The Hindustan Times has documents

that India has given the US to fulfil commitments established by

their Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism. The details of

Islamabad's collaboration show that the Taliban can't function

without Pakistan's support.

 

The regime headed by Mullah Omar in Afghanistan has got all that it

has demanded from Pakistan President Musharraf's regime — food, oil,

medical aid, military supplies and even ISI expertise for carrying

out important missions and manning sensitive outposts.

 

Maulana Masood Azhar, the militant freed in the IC-814 hijack deal,

last month thanked Pakistan at a meeting of the so-called Afghan

Defence Council in Islamabad to protest against the UN's decision to

deploy sanction monitors in Pakistan.

 

"If you gentlemen decide that the monitors should not come, then they

will not come," Azhar said, underlining the close ties between Kabul

and Islamabad.

 

This is what India has told the US. The ISI uses abandoned factories

and closed cotton mills in the NWFP's Mansehra, Lakki, Nowshera and

Charsadda areas as staging posts to send military hardware and

aviation fuel to Afghanistan.

 

It has opened offices in Kandahar and Kabul under a Major and a

Brigadier respectively. They are responsible for co-ordination

between the Pakistan Army, the ISI and the Taliban. Another office at

Mazar-e-Sharif handles co-ordination with Uzbekistan-based

terrorists.

 

What India has told the US

 

* India says it has material evidence that Pak is flouting UN

resolution banning military aid to Taliban

 

* Under garb of relief, arms and ammunition sent to Afghanistan

 

* Pak using abandoned factories in border towns as staging posts

 

* Equipment trucked to Mardan, Bannu etc by night. Baluchistan route

to Kandahar also used

 

* Peshwar-Jalalabad highway is avoided; obscure feeder roads are used

instead

 

* ISI has two new offices in Kandahar and Kabul

 

* ISI opens office in Mazar-e-Sharif for expanding Uzbekistan ops

 

* In April, Taliban Deputy Minister Ahsan Akhund allowed to attend

Deoband confence in Peshawar