Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency gives the Afghan Taliban far greater backing than previously thought, a report says.
(NSI News Source Info) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - June 14, 2010: New evidence has emerged of strong political and financial links between the Taliban and Pakistan's ISI intelligence service.
A report based on a series of face-to-face interviews with Afghan insurgents, published by the London School of Economics, alleges that the Pakistani government helps the Taliban in strategic decision-making and coordination of insurgency tactics.
The report says the ISI provides Taliban fighters with training, cash and sanctuary as they fight Western troops in Afghanistan.
It also claims that Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari made a secret visit to 50 high-ranking Taliban prisoners in a Pakistani jail earlier this year to arrange their release.
The Pakistani government has dismissed the report as "rubbish".
But author Matt Waldman, a Harvard researcher, says he drew his conclusions from interviews with nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan.
"I think [what is] significant firstly is the scale and extent of the support form Pakistan's intelligence service for the insurgency," he said.
"The interviews suggest the support is extensive and is in a range of areas, including arms and ammunition.
"The interview suggests that it is official ISI policy. This is not the work of just one or two or another small number of rogue individuals or retired officers. The interviews strongly indicate that this is official ISI policy.
"Thirdly, the interview suggests that the ISI have strong operational and strategic influence on the movement, and that means that they have influence both in terms of what happens in the field in Afghanistan and at the highest levels of the movement ... [in the] Quetta Shura, the supreme leadership council."
The report's claims that ISI intelligence officers are even represented on the Taliban's supreme leadership council are expected to raise tensions between Pakistan and the United States, which has provided billions of dollars in military assistance to the country to help fight the Taliban.
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