[Osx-nutters] Fwd: [Fwd: Pakistan: "The Taliban's Godfather"?]

[Kevin Callahan]

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> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject:	Pakistan: "The Taliban's Godfather"?
> Date:	Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:05:10 -0400
> From:	National Security Archive <archive at GWU.EDU>
> Reply-To:	National Security Archive <archive at GWU.EDU>
> To:	NSARCHIVE at HERMES.GWU.EDU
>
>
> National Security Archive Update, August 14, 2007
>
> PAKISTAN: "THE TALIBAN'S GODFATHER"?
>
> Documents Detail Years of Pakistani Support for Taliban, Extremists
>
> Covert Policy Linked Taliban, Kashmiri Militants, Pakistan's Pashtun  
> Troops
>
> Aid Encouraged Pro-Taliban Sympathies in Troubled Border Region
>
> For More Information Contact:
> Barbara Elias: 202/994-7000 - belias at gwu.edu
>
> http://www.nsarchive.org
>
> Washington DC, August 14, 2007 - A collection of newly-declassified  
> documents published today detail U.S. concern over Pakistan's  
> relationship with the Taliban during the seven-year period leading  
> up to 9-11. This new release comes just days after Pakistan's  
> president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, acknowledged that, "There is no  
> doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil." While  
> Musharraf admitted the Taliban were being sheltered in the lawless  
> frontier border regions, the declassified U.S. documents released  
> today clearly illustrate that the Taliban was directly funded, armed  
> and advised by Islamabad itself.
>
> Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National  
> Security Archive at George Washington University, the documents  
> reflect U.S. apprehension about Islamabad's longstanding provision  
> of direct aid and military support to the Taliban, including the use  
> of Pakistani troops to train and fight alongside the Taliban inside  
> Afghanistan. The records released today represent the most complete  
> and comprehensive collection of declassified documentation to date  
> on Pakistan's aid programs to the Taliban, illustrating Islamabad's  
> firm commitment to a Taliban victory in Afghanistan.
>
> These new documents also support and inform the findings of a  
> recently-released CIA intelligence estimate characterizing  
> Pakistan's tribal areas as a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists, and  
> provide new details about the close relationship between Islamabad  
> and the Taliban in the years prior to the U.S. invasion of  
> Afghanistan. Declassified State Department cables and U.S.  
> intelligence reports describe the use of Taliban terrorist training  
> areas in Afghanistan by Pakistani-supported militants in Kashmir, as  
> well as Pakistan's covert effort to supply Pashtun troops from its  
> tribal regions to the Taliban cause in Afghanistan--effectively  
> forging and reinforcing Pashtun bonds across the border and  
> consolidating the Taliban's severe form of Islam throughout  
> Pakistan's frontier region.
>
> Also published today are documents linking Harakat ul-Ansar, a  
> militant Kashmiri group funded directly by the government of  
> Pakistan, to terrorist training camps shared by Osama bin Laden in  
> Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
>
> Islamabad denies that it ever provided military support to the  
> Taliban, but the newly-released documents report that in the weeks  
> following the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996, Pakistan's  
> intelligence agency was "supplying the Taliban forces with  
> munitions, fuel, and food." Pakistan's Interservice Intelligence  
> Directorate was "using a private sector transportation company to  
> funnel supplies into Afghanistan and to the Taliban forces." Other  
> documents also conclude that there has been an extensive and  
> consistent history of "both military and financial assistance to the  
> Taliban."
>
> Highlights include:
>
> * August 1996: Pakistan Intelligence (ISID) "provides at least  
> $30,000 - and possibly as much as $60,000 - per month" to the  
> militant Kashmiri group Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA). Despite this aid,  
> the group is reaching out to sponsors of international terrorism  
> including Osama bin Laden for additional support, and may in the  
> near future become a threat to Islamabad itself as well as U.S.  
> interests. HUA contacts have hinted they "might undertake terrorist  
> actions against civilian airliners." [Doc 10]
>
> * October 1996: A National Security Agency document classified Top  
> Secret SI, Umbra comments on recent Taliban military successes  
> noting that even Pakistan "must harbour some concern" regarding the  
> Taliban's impressive capture of Kabul, as such victory may diminish  
> Pakistan's influence over the movement and produce a Taliban regime  
> in Kabul with strong links to Pakistan's own Pashtuns. [Doc 14]
>
> * October 1996: Although food supplies from Pakistan to the Taliban  
> are conducted openly through Pakistan's intelligence agency, the  
> ISID, "the munitions convoys depart Pakistan late in the evening  
> hours and are concealed to reveal their true contents." [Doc 15]
>
> * November 1996: Pakistan's Pashtun-based "Frontier Corps elements  
> are utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary -  
> combat" alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. [Doc 17]
>
> * March 1998: Al-Qaeda and Pakistan government-funded Harakat ul- 
> Ansar (HUA) have been sharing terrorist training camps in Taliban- 
> controlled Afghanistan for years [Link Doc 16], and HUA has  
> increasingly been moving ideologically closer to al-Qaeda. The U.S.  
> Embassy in Islamabad is growing increasingly concerned as Fazlur  
> Rahman Khalil, a leader in Pakistan's Harakat ul-Ansar has signed  
> Osama bin Laden's most recent fatwa promoting terrorist activities  
> against U.S. interests. [Doc 26]
>
> * September 1998 [Doc 31] and March 1999 [Doc 33]: The U.S.  
> Department of State voices concern that Pakistan is not doing all it  
> can to pressure the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden. "Pakistan  
> has not been responsive to our requests that it use its full  
> influence on the Taliban surrender of Bin Ladin." [Doc 33]
>
> * September 2000: A cable cited in The 9/11 Commission Report notes  
> that Pakistan's aid to the Taliban has reached "unprecedented"  
> levels, including recent reports that Islamabad has possibly allowed  
> the Taliban to use territory in Pakistan for military operations.  
> Furthermore the U.S. has "seen reports that Pakistan is providing  
> the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance and  
> military advisors." [Doc 34]
>
> For the complete posting, please visit the Archive's Web site at:
>
> http://www.nsarchive.org
>
> ________________________________________________________
>
> THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental  
> research institute and library located at The George Washington  
> University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes  
> declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information  
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>
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