LONDON: US authorities describe the main Pakistani intelligence service as a
terrorist organisation in secret files obtained by the Guardian.
Recommendations to interrogators at Guantánamo Bay rank the Inter-Services
Intelligence Directorate (ISI) alongside al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah in
Lebanon as threats. Being linked to any of these groups is an indication of
terrorist or insurgent activity, the documents say according to The Guardian.
"Through associations with these … organisations, a detainee may have
provided support to al-Qaida or the Taliban, or engaged in hostilities against
US or coalition forces [in Afghanistan]," says the document, dated September
2007 and called the Joint Task Force Guantánamo Matrix of Threat Indicators for
Enemy Combatants. It adds that links to these groups is evidence that an
individual poses a future threat.
The revelation that the ISI is considered as much of a threat as al-Qaida and
the Taliban will cause fury in Pakistan. It will further damage the already poor
relationship between US intelligence services and their Pakistani counterparts,
supposedly key allies in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other Islamist
militants in south Asia, the paper said.
Relations between America and Pakistan have been tense for years. A series of
high-level attempts have been made in recent weeks to improve ties after the
American CIA contractor Raymond Davis killed two Pakistanis in January.
The Threat Indicator Matrix is used to decide who among the hundreds of
Guantánamo detainees can be released. The ISI is listed among 36 groups
including Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led by al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman
al-Zawahiri; the Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs; the Iranian intelligence
services; and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Though the document dates from 2007 it is unlikely the ISI has been removed
from the current Threat Indicator Matrix.
In classified memos outlining the background of 700 prisoners at Guantánamo
there are scores of references, apparently based on intelligence reporting, to
the ISI supporting, co-ordinating and protecting insurgents fighting coalition
forces in Afghanistan, or even assisting al-Qaida. Pakistani authorities have
consistently denied any links with insurgents in Afghanistan or al-Qaida.
The documents detail extensive collaboration between the ISI and US
intelligence services. Many of those transferred to Guantánamo Bay, including
senior al-Qaida figures such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, who planned the 9/11
attacks, and Abu Farraj al-Libbi, one of the group’s most capable operators,
were arrested with Pakistani help or turned over to American authorities by
Pakistani intelligence services.
The memos rely on a variety of sources to make their case. Though the broad
argument for releasing or detaining an individual has sometimes been made public
during military tribunals at Guantánamo, the material underpinning those
arguments has remained secret until now. Sources for that material include the
interrogation of the detainee whose release is being discussed, as well as the
records of the questioning of hundreds of other prisoners.
Intelligence from elsewhere, including foreign spy agencies such as the
Afghan National Directorate of Security, appears to have been extensively used.
There is little independent corroboration for the reporting and some of the
information is likely to have been obtained under duress. Systematic human
rights abuses have been recorded at Guantánamo.
The details of the alleged ISI support for insurgents at the very least give
an important insight into the thinking of American strategists and senior
decision-makers who would have been made aware of the intelligence as it was
gathered. Many documents refer to alleged ISI activities in 2002 or 2003, long
before the policy shift in 2007 that saw the Bush administration become much
more critical of the Pakistani security establishment and distance itself from
Pervez Musharraf, who was president.
One example is found among reasons given by Guantánamo officials for the
continued detention of Harun Shirzad al-Afghani, a veteran militant who arrived
there in June 2007. His file states he is believed to have attended a meeting in
August 2006 at which Pakistani military and intelligence officials joined senior
figures in the Taliban, al-Qaida, the Lashkar-e-Taiba group responsible for the
2008 attack in Mumbai and the Hezb-e-Islami group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
The meeting was to discuss operations in Afghanistan against coalition
forces, says the memo. It cites an unidentified letter in the possession of US
intelligence services describing the meeting which, it says, ended with a
decision by the various insurgent factions "to increase terrorist operations in
the Kapisa, Kunar, Laghman and Nangarhar provinces [of Afghanistan], including
suicide bombings, mines, and assassinations".
Harun Shirzad al-Afghani was reported to have told his interrogators that in
2006 an unidentified Pakistani ISI officer paid 1m Pakistani rupees to a
militant to transport ammunition to a depot within Afghanistan jointly run by
al-Qaida, the Taliban and Hekmatyar’s faction. According to Afghani, who was
captured in the eastern Nangarhar province, the depot contained "about 800
rockets, AK-47 and machine gun ammunition, mortars, RPGs [rocket propelled
grenades] and mines" and had been established "in preparation for a spring 2007
offensive". More than 230 western troops were killed in Afghanistan in the
course of 2007; 99 between January and June.
A separate document about a 42-year-old Afghan detainee cites intelligence
reports claiming that in early 2005 Pakistani officials were present at a
meeting chaired by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the supreme chief of the Taliban, of an
array of senior insurgents in Quetta, the Pakistani city where it has long been
believed the Taliban leadership are based.
"The meeting included high-level Taliban leaders … [and] representatives from
the Pakistani government and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate," the
document says. It adds: "Mullah Omar told the attendees that they should not
co-operate with the new infidel government (in Afghanistan) and should keep
attacking coalition forces."
Many references are more historic. A memo about another detainee, Abdul Kakal
Hafiz, cites intelligence that in January 2003, insurgents in the Zabul province
of Afghanistan received a month of training in explosives, bomb-making and
assassination techniques from "three Pakistani military officers". The training
was apparently "conducted in preparation for a planned spring campaign to
assassinate westerners". A Red Cross water engineer, Ricardo Mungia, was shot
and killed by insurgents on 27 March 2003 in Oruzgan province. The murder had a
major effect on humanitarian and development programmes in south and eastern
Afghanistan and was a huge setback for western-led efforts.
According to the files on an Afghan known simply as Hamidullah, captured by
Afghan national army soldiers in July 2003, intelligence "reporting" from
December 2002 "linked detainee to a Pakistani ISI initiative to create an office
in [the Pakistani frontier city of] Peshawar combining elements of the Taliban,
HIG [Hekmatyar’s group] and al-Qaida".
The memo said that intelligence indicated "the goal of the initiative was to
plan and execute various terrorist attacks in Afghanistan" including one on the
HQ of foreign entities in Kabul in January 2003.
Another file on a high-profile Afghan religious and political leader detained
months after the initial invasion of Afghanistan and released in 2008 refers to
ISI operations in the eastern province of Kunar during 2002 that were, the memo
says, designed to destabilise the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai, who
had been installed as interim president by the US-led coalition.
"In January 2002 ISI financed the activities of several factions … in Kunar …
in order to destabilise the Afghan [government]. In March 2002 [the ISI]
reportedly provided $12,000 … to finance military operations against the new
government," the document says.
The file reveals that the detainee, Mullah Haji Rohullah, was working with
the British government, and possibly MI6, when detained. "This detainee ... had
dealings with the United Kingdom and with the Pakistani [ISI]," says the memo,
dated 17 June 2005.
The documents show the varying interpretations by American officials of the
apparent evidence of ISI involvement with insurgents in Afghanistan. There are
repeated "analyst’s notes" in parentheses. Several in earlier documents stress
that it is "rogue elements" of the ISI who actively support insurgents in
Afghanistan.
One describes how "rogue elements of the ISI are known to have had sympathies
for and provided support to anti-coalition militia. The most significant was
sniper training and the use of remote control improvised explosive devices."
Another file from 2005 says that "rogue factions from the ISI have routinely
pursued private interests and acted against the stated policy of the government
of Pakistan".
The analysis that such operations were not sanctioned policy for the ISI was
current among US and British intelligence officials as late as 2007. By 2008 the
view of western services had changed and such caveats are rare in later
documents.
The files reveal much of the shadow war in Afghanistan fought out by secret
services – a contemporary form of the 19th century Great Game. There are a
series of references to Iranian intelligence; these again are unconfirmed. One
intelligence report cited in the file on an Afghan called Khair Ulla Said Wali
Khairkhwa, who arrived at Guantánamo in May 2002, refers to "a meeting initiated
by Iran, possibly by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps" between Iranian
officials and Taliban representatives near the Afghan-Iranian border in October
2001. The officials allegedly offered to broker a coalition between the Northern
Alliance, which was allied with the west, and the Taliban in their fight against
US intervention. According to the memo, the Iranian delegation "offered to open
the borders to Arabs who wanted to cross into Afghanistan to fight against US
and coalition forces".
Around 18 months after the fall of the Taliban, another memo claims, Iranian
intelligence gave a former Taliban commander and Hekmatyar US$2m to fund
"anti-coalition militia" activities. Citing further intelligence reports, the
file says: "In December 2005, representatives of Ismail Khan, former governor of
Herat and minister of water and power in Afghanistan, met with two Pakistanis
and three Iranians to discuss the planning of terrorist acts and to create
better lines of communication between the [Hekmatyar group] and Taliban." This
latter claim appears highly speculative as Khan is a long-term enemy of
Hekmatyar and the Taliban – in 2009 he narrowly survived a suicide attack for
which insurgents claimed responsibility. Online
