Pakistan Conflict Monitor

WIkiLeaks Exacerbate Strains in US-Pak Relations: Analysts

WikiLeaks' Fallout for U.S.-Pakistan Ties [audio], Council on Foreign Relations, 30 July 2010

EXCERPT: "The classified U.S. military documents related to the war in Afghanistan leaked by WikiLeaks.org paint a grim picture of collusion between Pakistan's intelligence service, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and members of the Afghan Taliban. While the allegations laid out in the documents--that the ISI supports Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan--may not be new, they exacerbated strains in U.S.-Pakistan relations. In Pakistan, the allegations feed a growing paranoia that the leaks are part of a 'conspiracy aimed at damaging the Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship, which is in a nascent stage, as well as the U.S.-Pakistan relationship,' says Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. In the United States, the allegations will raise 'new question marks in the American public, the American media, and the American Congress about the reliability of our Pakistani partner,' says Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution. However, the Obama administration understands 'this relationship is absolutely vital not just to the stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan but to the stability of all of South and Central Asia,' says Riedel, who also chaired the review of U.S. policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan for the administration in 2009."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Despite vast US aid, Pakistan likes Al Qaeda more than America, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 July 2010
Leaks highlight Pakistan’s Afghan quest, The Financial Times, 30 July 2010
Get tough on Pakistan, Newsweek, 30 July 2010
The AfPak War via WikiLeaks, OpenDemocracy, 29 July 2010

Related posts:
Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan: Leaked Reports, 26 July 2010
Pakistan in the danger zone: A tenuous US-Pakistan relationship, 29 June 2010
Negotiating with the Taliban: Issues and prospects, 28 June 2010
ISI trains, funds, and supplies Taliban: Report, 14 June 2010
US praises Pakistan's "excellent cooperation"; Security pledge made, 19 May 2010

Press Q&A with Admiral Mullen on AfPak Security

Pakistan Press Avail, Delivered by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Chiefs of Staff, July 24, 2010

EXCERPT: "[Q] Admiral, you were just quoted in New Delhi saying something that we do not always agree to the whole way the ISI works: 'The manner that they work, we have our differences.' Can you expand on that? Exactly where do you differ on the manner of working? [A] It is both the Pakistan – the military as well as the ISI. And the ISI in particular have captured or killed more terrorists than any other organization, any other country – sorry, it’s the military as well as the ISI – in the world. They’ve worked with us incredibly well in important areas. There are parts of the ISI I don’t understand specifically. [...] I think I’ll just leave it where I said it: that very specifically, there have been great accomplishments on the part of the Pak mil and ISI specifically and there certainly are areas that I just don’t have a clear picture of. [...] [Q] There are perceptions in Pakistani press and Pakistani people that Americans always rely on the information provided to them by Indian sources, like the movements of the – (inaudible) – in Pakistan or the whereabouts of the – and coming – the terrorists want Pakistan to be Afghanistan. [...] [A] Well, I’ll be very specific with respect to terrorists which move freely across the border. And I want to assure you that our information and intelligence in that regard doesn’t come from the Indians, very specifically."

Read the full interview.

Related articles:
Admiral Mullen asks ISI to shift its strategic focus, Times of India, 30 July 2010
Afghans pose awkward questions for US military chief, The Associated Press, 27 July 2010

Related posts:
US troops in Pakistan to oversee development projects, 21 July 2010
ISI trains, funds, and supplies Taliban: Report, 14 June 2010
US special ops aiding Pakistan's "hold and build" operations, 13 April 2010
Response to US troop presence surprisingly muted, 4 February 2010

Senior Haqqani Network Leader Denies Alleged Links to ISI

Taliban Responds to WikiLeaks, The Daily Beast, 28 July 2010

EXCERPT: "Responding to WikiLeaks' release of tens of thousands of pages of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, a high-ranking Taliban commander rejected reports that the Taliban had any links with Pakistan’s spy agency. 'Look, we’re at war and would like to get aid from anyone to fight against the U.S. and its allies who invaded our homeland,' Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior leader of the Haqqani network, told The Daily Beast on Monday, denying any existing links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, known by its acronym ISI. According to The New York Times, the leaked military reports suggest that Pakistan—a country at least nominally a U.S. ally and the recipient of more than $1 billion a year in U.S. aid—has been collaborating indirectly or directly with the Taliban and its affiliates in Afghanistan. [...] While Haqqani said the leaked reports were useful to him, he also said he wished they had been leaked earlier because they provided evidence of American brutality in Afghanistan."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Insurgent leader on WikiLeaks: Now you tell us, Wired Magazine, 28 July 2010
My war, WikiLeaked: Why the public (and the military) can’t count on those battle logs, Wired // Danger Room, 28 July 2010
US report on ISI-Taliban link is fictional: Ex-ISI chief [video], Times of India, 28 July 2010
Key quotes from the document, BBC News, 28 September 2006

Related posts:
Former ISI spymaster denies links to Taliban, 27 July 2010
Pakistan aids insurgency in Afghanistan: Leaked reports, 26 July 2010
Pakistan efforts to broker Afghan-Haqqani peace "undermine US interests", 25 June 2010
Afghan Taliban deny links to ISI, 16 June 2010
ISI trains, funds, and supplies Taliban: Report, 14 June 2010

Afghanistan Questions US Silence over Pakistan's Role in the Insurgency

Afghanistan Questions U.S. Silence over Pakistan's Role, Reuters, 27 July 2010

EXCERPT: "The United States has pursued a contradictory policy with regard to the Afghan war by ignoring Pakistan's role in the insurgency, the Afghan government said on Tuesday, following the leak of U.S. military documents. The classified documents released by the organization, WikiLeaks, show current and former members of Pakistan's spy agency were actively collaborating with the Taliban in plotting attacks in Afghanistan. On Tuesday, in its first reaction to the leak, Afghanistan's National Security Council said the United States had failed to attack the patrons and supporters of the Taliban hiding in Pakistan throughout the nine-year conflict. 'With regret ... our allies did not show necessary attention about the external support for the international terrorists ... for the regional stability and global security,' the council said in a statement. Afghanistan has long blamed Pakistan for meddling in its affairs, accusing the neighbor of plotting attacks to destabilize it. Islamabad, which has had longstanding ties to the Taliban, denies involvement in the insurgency and says it is a victim of militancy itself. The National Security Council did not name Pakistan, but said use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy was a dangerous gamble and had to be stopped."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Pakistan has its own battle to fight, Asia Times Online, 28 July 2010
Pakistan and Afghanistan: Interdependent, distrustful neighbours, The Guardian, 27 July 2010
Pakistani spies trace Fazlullah to Kunar province, The Express Tribune, 27 July 2010
Malik says terrorists coming from Afghanistan, DAWN, 27 July 2010
No change to war strategy, Pakistan ties after leak: US, DAWN, 27 July 2010
Afghanistan war logs: Clandestine aid for Taliban bears Pakistan's fingerprints, The Guardian, 25 July 2010

Related posts:
Afghanistan builds up strategic partnership with Pakistan, 21 July 2010
Pakistan, Afghanistan to boost anti-terror cooperation, 25 June 2010
Pakistan efforts to broker Afghan-Haqqani peace "undermine US interests", 25 June 2010
Afghan spy agency accuses Pakistani counterpart in suicide bombing, 25 May 2010
US praises Pakistan's "excellent cooperation"; security pledge made, 19 May 2010

Former Spy Held Hostage by Militants Demands Help

Kidnapped Former Pakistan Agent Colonel Imam Pleads for Life, The Guardian, 27 July 2010

EXCERPT: "The former Pakistan intelligence agent known as the godfather of the Taliban emerged in a video today pleading for his life, four months after he was captured by an Islamic extremist group. One of the most famous former officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Colonel Imam said his life was in danger unless the authorities meet his kidnappers demand to free a number of prisoners held for terrorism. Imam, whose real name is Sultan Amir Tarar, worked alongside Afghanistan's mujahideen to defeat the Soviet occupation. In the mid-1990s, as an ISI agent in the country, he spotted the potential of the then emerging Taliban movement and helped nurture it. After 2001 he was forcibly retired from the ISI after being considers too radical. But Imam's jihadist pedigree and continuing support for the Taliban – its spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, is said to have sent messages to the captors asking for the former agent's release – appears to mean nothing to the even more radical Islamic extremist group now holding him."

Read the full story.
Read the video transcript [pdf].

Related articles:
Burqa bombers kill 44 at Kohat IDP camp, Daily Times, 18 April 2010. Responsibility claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami.

Related posts:
Kidnapped former spy, journalist freed, 6 May 2010 [Read the correction notice updated by the International Press Institute]
Former ISI agent's killing points to Taliban's lack of unity, 3 May 2010
Confessions of a Pakistani spy, 23 April 2010
Militants demand prisoner exchange for missing ex-ISI officers, 19 April 2010
Former ISI officials accused of training Taliban, 5 March 2010

Former ISI Spymaster Denies Links to Taliban

Former Spymaster Denies Alleged Links to the Taliban, The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 July 2010

EXCERPT: "THE Afghanistan war logs make a former Pakistan spymaster, Hamid Gul, out to be a villain helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda strike at US-led forces in Afghanistan. But the retired general mocked the leaked intelligence while sitting in his spacious home in Rawalpindi. 'My name is going to go down in the history books as the 74-year-old man who defeated the Americans and their allies, including Australia,' he told the Herald yesterday with a laugh. 'Single-handedly he demolished them, they will say. Can you believe this fiction?' General Gul was the head of Pakistan's powerful Inter-services Intelligence between 1987 and 1989, when it co-operated with the CIA to assist the Afghan mujahideen fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan. However, General Gul's name crops up frequently in the leaked war logs, linking him to insurgent plots to attack US-led forces in Afghanistan, including a meeting early last year with Taliban commanders in Pakistan's South Waziristan region to discuss a 'suicide vehicle' strike."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Former spymaster rejects Wikileaks charges as U.S. pre-exit smear, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 27 July 2010
The audacity of Hamid Gul, The Washington Post // Spy Talk, 26 July 2010
The ISI and terrorism: Behind the accusations, Council on Foreign Relations, 26 July 2010
US moves to declare former Pakistani officers international terrorists, The Long War Journal, 4 December 2008

Related posts:
Pakistan aids insurgency in Afghanistan: Leaked reports, 26 July 2010
LeT seeks to destabilise South Asia, ISI-Taliban links a problem: Holbrooke, 22 July 2010
India accuses Pakistan spy agency of executing Mumbai attacks, 14 July 2010
Afghan Taliban deny links to ISI, 16 June 2010
ISI trains, funds, and supplies Taliban: Report, 14 June 2010
CIA: ISI worth the money, 16 November 2009

Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan: Leaked Reports

Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan, Reports Assert, The New York Times, 26 July 2010

EXCERPT: "Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday. The documents, made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders. Taken together, the reports indicate that American soldiers on the ground are inundated with accounts of a network of Pakistani assets and collaborators that runs from the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, through southern Afghanistan, and all the way to the capital, Kabul. Much of the information — raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan— cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants. Some describe plots for attacks that do not appear to have taken place"

Read the full story.

Related articles:
US lawmaker says leaks paint 'outdated' Pakistan picture, DAWN, 26 July 2010
ISI denounces US intelligence reports, DAWN, 26 July 2010
US says Wikileaks could "threaten national security", BBC News, 26 July 2010
What is Wikileaks?, BBC News, 25 July 2010
WikiLeaks works to expose government secrets, but Web site's sources are a mystery, The Washington Post, 19 May 2010

Related resources:
The Afghan War Diary, WikiLeaks, 25 July 2010

Related posts:
Pakistan in the danger zone: A tenuous US-Pakistan relationship, 29 June 2010
Negotiating with the Taliban: Issues and prospects, 28 June 2010
ISI trains, funds, and supplies Taliban: Report, 14 June 2010
US praises Pakistan's "excellent cooperation"; Security pledge made, 19 May 2010
NATO, Pakistan to pursue closer relations, February 4 2010

LeT Seeks to Destabilise South Asia, ISI-Taliban Links a Problem: Holbrooke

Militants Looking to Trigger India-Pakistan Conflict: US, AFP, 22 July 2010

EXCERPT: "Top US diplomatic and military officials warned Thursday of fresh attempts by militant groups to push nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan into a military conflict. The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said he feared extremists would attempt another operation similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks in order to goad India into armed retaliation against its neighbour and arch-rival. [...] Mullen began a two-day visit to India on Thursday that coincided with a visit by the US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke. Speaking earlier to reporters in Delhi, Holbrooke said the LeT was just one of a number of regional militant groups, along with the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, looking to destabilise South Asia. [...] At the same time, Holbrooke said Washington had also raised concerns with Islamabad about links between Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency and the Taliban. 'The links between the ISI and the Taliban are a problem,' he acknowledged. Mullen, however, stressed that the Obama administration had no choice but to 'stay engaged' with the ISI, given its crucial role in Pakistan."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Holbrooke admits ISI link with Taleban, Khaleej Times, 23 July 2010
US wants better relations between India, Pakistan, Sify News, 22 July 2010

Related posts:
India accuses Pakistan spy agency of executing Mumbai attacks, 14 July 2010
ISI trains, funds, and supplies Taliban: Report, 14 June 2010
US worries LeT might trigger India-Pakistan war, 11 March 2010
US pushes for regional approach to AfPak security, 13 May 2010
Lashkar-e-Taiba: One year after Mumbai, 26 November 2009

Political Dimensions of Police Reform in Pakistan: Report

Political Dimensions of Police Reform in Pakistan [pdf], Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 14 July 2010

EXCERPT: "Few reforms would make more of an impact on Pakistan’s security and political situation than reforming the civilian security forces, particularly the police. Only a strong police force can prevent the expansion of radicalism by tackling the problem at the grassroots level. Only a strong police force, working with local administration and the judiciary, can provide long-term security. Strong and efficient security forces are also the only way to diminish the civilian government’s dependence on the army to ensure domestic security. They can help restore confidence in the government and its ability to protect people. Increasing the capacity of the police will lead to greater efficiency in security management and, as a result, increase the legitimacy of the regime. These goals have been the cornerstone of assistance programs to Pakistan’s police service, including the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. assistance to be spent annually on police reform contained in the much-talked-about Kerry-Lugar-Berman law. The link between security and legitimacy is obvious in most countries, including in dictatorial regimes where the need to re-establish security is often the pretext for taking power. However, the causality between security and legitimacy is somewhat distorted in the case of Pakistan."

Read the full report [pdf].

Related articles:
Police open fire on thousands of protesters in Kashmir, The Canadian Press, 19 July 2010

Related posts:
Police struggle to battle militants in Pakistan, 6 July 2010
Torture prevalent in security forces' custody: Report, 25 June 2010
Court orders inquiry into past cases of police torture, 5 March, 2010
Public dismayed by crisis of governance, 18 January 2010
Pakistan slips five places in Transparency International Corruption Index, 18 November 2009

India Accuses Pakistan Spy Agency of Executing Mumbai Attacks

India: Pakistan Spy Agency Executed Mumbai Attacks, Associated Press, 14 July 2010

EXCERPT: " India has accused Pakistan's powerful spy agency of planning and executing the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in the strongest and most specific allegation of Islamabad's involvement in the assault from a top official. The remark comes a day before the foreign ministers of the rival nations are set to meet in Islamabad to attempt to rebuild a fragile peace dialogue that was shattered by the attacks, which killed 166 people. It appeared to be an attempt to ratchet up the pressure on Pakistan to prosecute people whom India says were deeply involved in the assault. In an interview published Wednesday, Home Secretary G.K. Pillai accused Pakistan's powerful spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence of playing a key role the attacks. 'It was not just a peripheral role. They (the agency) were literally controlling and coordinating it from the beginning till the end,' Pillai told the Indian Express newspaper."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Indian official accuses Pakistan spy agency in Mumbai terror attack, Los Angeles Times, 15 July 2010
What are the major issues between India and Pakistan?, Alertnet, 14 July 2010

Related posts:
Supreme Court releases alleged Mumbai mastermind, 25 May 2010
Mumbai gunman sentenced to death, 6 May 2010
Pakistan's Mumbai suspects may walk free, 5 May 2010
India-Pakistan meeting a "first step" in rebuilding confidence, 25 February 2010
India-Pakistan relations post-Mumbai terrorist attacks, 19 January 2010