Is Pakistan's shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence agency supporting and even fighting alongside the Taliban and allied groups against NATO and Afghan forces? Defense Tech's Christian Lowe posted a snippet of an interview with Eric Edelman, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, which suggests the ISI is still active against allied forces in Afghanistan. Here is the exchange:
Defense Tech: In Afghanistan, have you seen any evidence of Pakistani agencies' involvement in assisting the Taliban and other parties within Afghanistan against US troops and also within the [federally administered tribal areas]?
Edelman: I think that, you know, there's a long history here. The Pakistan government for a very long time has regarded Afghanistan as its 'strategic depth' and clearly there have been relationships that go back to the Mujahaddin era that have persisted. We've had some concerns about it, we've expressed those concerns. We had a meeting with the head of ISI, general Pasha ... my view is we ought to give him a chance to see how he can handle his new responsibilities and go from there.
Defense Tech: So is that a 'yes?'
Edelman: You'll have to make a judgment on whether that was a yes or not.
Reports of the ISI's aiding the Taliban are nothing new. In December 2006, Afghan intelligence captured a Pakistani intelligence officer who was "in charge of relations between the ISI and al Qaeda leaders" in Kunar province.
But the most controversial claim was made by Lieutenant Colonel Chris Nash, a U.S. Marine Corps leader of an Embedded Training Team operating on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier from June 2007 until March of this year. Nash claimed the ISI provided helicopter resupply support to "a 'base camp' in Nangarhar Province occupied by fighters from the Taliban, al Qaeda and the Hezb-i-Islami faction led by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar." Nash told this to the Army Times after a copy of his PowerPoint briefing was leaked. Several military officers have denied seeing evidence of ISI involvement in Afghanistan.
Nash states in his presentation that the information is classified (I have a copy of the presentation). "ISI involved in direct support to many enemy operations…classification prevents further discussion of this point," Nash states in the notes. "Area specific."
Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, and multiple "purges" of the ISI, elements of Pakistani intelligence are still supporting Taliban and al Qaeda attacks inside Afghanistan. Edelman and the rest of the U.S. government dances around the issue of Pakistani complicity with the Taliban and even al Qaeda inside of Afghanistan because the United States is dependent on Pakistan to keep NATO's vital supply line open.
