Pakistan spies under heat in new US strategy

The United States has vowed to put the heat on Pakistan's spies in its new regional strategy, with top officials openly accusing elements in powerful intelligence agency of abetting Al-Qaeda.

President Barack Obama on Friday unveiled a plan to root out extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan by boosting troops and drastically increasing civilian personnel and aid to the region.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai immediately hailed the proposals.

"This strategy and this review exactly corresponds to what we have been asking for," Karzai told reporters in Kabul. "This is better than we were expecting, as a matter of fact."

Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to the region, said he would visit Pakistan again next week to follow up on the plan. Of all issues, investigating the nuclear-armed nation's spy network "is the most important," he said.

"The issue's very disturbing," Holbrooke said on public television when asked if Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence ISI was assisting Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists.

"We cannot succeed if the two intelligence agencies are at each others' throat or don't trust each other and if the kind of collusion you referred to is factuel," Holbrooke said.

General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, did not dispute that ISI elements have tipped off extremists to let them escape US-led forces.

"There are some cases that are indisputable in which that appears to have taken place," Petraeus said.

During the Cold War, the ISI worked with the CIA to arm Islamist groups that fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The ISI later backed the Taliban, which imposed an medieval brand of austere Islamic rule on the war-torn country.

Pakistan switched from top Taliban backer to frontline US ally after the September 11, 2001 attacks. But the ISI has long faced allegations of insubordination to Pakistan's government, now led by US-friendly civilian President Asif Ali Zardari.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that US officials had found evidence that ISI operatives offered money, military supplies and even strategic planning to Taliban commanders.

Links between the Taliban and ISI "are very strong and some unquestionably remain to this day," Petraeus told public television. "It is much more difficult to say at what level."

Such open criticism of the ISI will be music to the ears of India, which accuses Pakistani intelligence of plotting attacks in divided Kashmir and involvement in last year's bloodbath in Mumbai that killed 165 people.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military officer, told CNN there were "certainly indications" of ISI involvement with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

He voiced hope that the new US "regional approach" would try to reduce tensions over Kashmir, allowing Pakistan to re-deploy troops away from arch-enemy India and to Afghan border areas.

Obama branded Al-Qaeda a "cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within," calling the extremists responsible for thousands of deaths and waves of destruction against Pakistanis.

"We all know that."





Kasahara