Kabul: Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja
Pasha has been protecting Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Afghanistan’s former spy
chief Amrullah Saleh has alleged.
Saleh said he had no doubts that Mullah Omar was hiding in a safe house owned
by Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the ISI, in the city of Karachi.
"He is protected by ISI. General Pasha knows as I am talking to you where is
Mullah Omar, and he keeps daily briefs from his officers about the location of
senior Taliban leaders, simple," the Guardian quoted Saleh, as saying.
Saleh was speaking to the newspaper soon after addressing a rally of several
thousand Afghans in Kabul organised as a show of strength of what he called
Afghanistan’s "anti-Taliban constituency", who are alarmed at the prospect of
peace talks with insurgents.
The killing of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who was sheltered by the
Taliban regime in the 1990s, has prompted heady speculation that an "end game"
to the 10-year conflict is now at hand, with the Afghan government and the
Taliban-led insurgency striking a deal.
Meanwhile, Pakistan denies that it knew of bin Laden’s whereabouts or
sheltered him. Online
