ISI Links with "Al Qaeda"

[Annie]

'Rogue' intelligence agency under fire

By Daniel Dombey in Washington and Farhan Bokhari in,Islamabad

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1ec8b3cc-6e50-11dd-b5df-0000779fd18c.html

Pakistan's new government has failed to prevent the country's intelligence agency from aiding terrorist attacks and supporting the Taliban, a senior US official has told the Financial Times.

Speaking under condition of anonymity, the state department official added Pakistan needed to speed up efforts to control the ISI, the intelligence agency, after the resignation of Pervez Musharraf as president.

"The position of the ISI has always been ambiguous [but] they may have been more directly involved in actions in more recent months because of lack of supervision," he said, referring to "a lot of allegations" that the agency was involved in the July 7 bombing of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan.

That attack, together with continuing US intelligence reports that al-Qaeda has entrenched its position in "safe havens" in Pakistan close to the Afghan border, has deepened Washington's doubts about prospects for military-to-military and intelligence co-operation.

Western diplomats say the US confronted Pakistani officials last month with what it considered credible evidence documenting the ISI's role in backing extremist Islamist groups, although officials in Islamabad say there is no proof of any involvement in the bombing.

Returning from a trip to Pakistan last month, Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, had declined to comment on whether the ISI could be weaned off its contacts with Islamist and radical groups.

Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani senior diplomat, said: "There is a lot of pressure building up on Pakistan to take full charge of the ISI. Rightly or wrongly, people from the outside think the ISI is the source of all their problems."

The agency was created in 1948, a year after Pakistan's independence, primarily as a counter-intelligence agency with responsibility to gather overseas intelligence. From 1979 it was mainly responsible for training and arming volunteers from Islamic groups willing to go to Afghanistan for the "jihad" against Soviet troops.

Senior Pakistani government officials familiar with security issues said Mr Musharraf's departure had created an opportunity to order high-level personnel changes in the agency.

However, US officials were dismayed last month by the failure of a bid by Pakistan's interior ministry to put the intelligence agency under its direct control, rather than that of the military.

Yesterday, Husain Haq-qani, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, described the Interior Ministry's failure to take control of the ISI as a technical one, adding that it would instead be put under the authority of the prime minister's secretariat.

"The exercise of civilian authority over Pakistan's various institutions of state is a work in progress," he said. "Pakistan's military and Pakistan's intelligence services have recognised that they would be better able to serve Pakistan if they are under the control of the elected institutions of state."

The US state department official added that Mr Musharraf's departure was "an opportunity to focus on serious issues".

"There are signs of lining ISI more directly up in terms of going after the terrorist problem and not being so schizophrenic in terms of how they deal with terrorism," he said. "The question is: is it developing fast enough to make a serious inroad on the problem?" He cited recent Pakistani operations in Swat and Bajaur as "signs of more resolute action against terrorism".

His comments came as Ashfaq Kiyani, Pakistan's army chief and former head of the ISI, made a rare visit to Kabul yesterday for discussions with US and Afghan commanders.

Military-to-military co-operation had suffered after Pakistan accused the US of killing several members of its Frontier Corps militia in a strike in June.

The US has continued to attack suspected Taliban targets inside Pakistan, despite protests by Yusuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's premier.