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| Afghanistan |
| US Senators accuse ISI of sheltering Taliban |
| 2003-02-15 |
| Hindustan Times Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is once again coming in for close scrutiny in Washington DC. Two senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have raised concerns about ISI's renewed help to Taliban and Al-Qaeda activists to infiltrate into Afghanistan in a bid to destabilise the Hamid Karzai regime. See? People are starting to notice... Committee chairman Richard Lugar and ranking member Joseph Biden brought up the issue during a hearing on Wednesday and cited reports indicating renewed ISI assistance to Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements. They, however, thought the ISI was carrying on with this activity without the knowledge of President Pervez Musharraf. Or with it, and he can't do anything to stop it — assuming he wants to. I don't think he'll want to again until his pee-pee's in the wringer, with a couple or three turns to the crank. And even then, it'll just be for awhile. Lugar pointedly stated that elements within the ISI that backed the Taliban during the past decade were trying to regain influence in Afghanistan by facilitating the infiltration of activists across the border. Biden, too, felt that the ISI was propping up the Pashtun groups opposing the Karzai government. Even Joe caught it. We're not talkin' real subtle, here... A report in the New York Times, however, quoted two senior administration officials as saying that the situation was not as dangerous as suggested by the two Senators. But one of the officials commented that Afghanistan's "neighbouring countries would like to have a hand in it". Iran's been pretty well-behaved, not wanting to give the U.S. a pretense for whacking them. Pakland feels more secure, like the U.S. can't get along without them. This trend's still got a little way to develop, though, before it begins to stink out loud. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |