Commenting on the interview, The New York Times said that the "former commander's' account belies years of assurances by Pakistan to American officials since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that it has ceased supporting militant groups in its territory. "The United States has given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid over the past decade for its help with counterterrorism operations. Still, the former commander said, Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment has not abandoned its policy of supporting the militant groups as tools in Pakistan's dispute with India over the border territory of Kashmir and in Afghanistan to drive out American and NATO forces."
The
purported interview of the former commander echoes US accusations that the ISI
has links with the militants.
In April
2011 Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while
visiting Pakistan
said: "ISI has a long-standing relationship with Haqqani network, that does not
mean everybody in ISI but it is there. It's fairly well known," he said in an
interview with a Pakistani TV channel. "Haqqani is supporting, funding,
training fighters that are killing Americans and killing coalition partners.
And I have a sacred obligation to do all I can to make sure that doesn't
happen.
Mullen said
Pakistan's perceived
foot-dragging in tackling strongholds in North Waziristan
belonging to the Haqqani network and its continuing relationship with it was
"the most difficult part" of the US-Pakistani relationship.
According
to Daniel Markey, a senior fellow for India,
Pakistan and South Asia at
the Council on Foreign Relations, US-Pakistan ties have been sorely strained
for more than a year over the U.S.
buildup in neighboring Afghanistan.
But he says things really took a nosedive in January when Raymond Davis, a CIA
contractor, shot and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore. A Pakistani court acquitted Davis of murder charges in
March after a deal that involved the payment of compensation, or "blood
money," to the families of the two men he killed.
"During
that time, it became quite clear that the United
States was conducting covert operations against Pakistan
and against the will of the Pakistani intelligence service. So that brought the
rift out ... more into the open," Markey says.
A day after
Davis was released from jail after compensation
was paid to the families of his victims, an American drone missile strike
killed 30 peace jirga tribal leaders close to the Afghan border, prompting
Pakistan Army Chief General Kayani to make a rare public condemnation of the
tactic, which Pakistan's
army had previously kept quiet about.
Relations
between Pakistan and the United States
took a nosedive after the May 2 US operation in Abbottabad that purportedly
killed Osama bin Laden. The operation deeply embarrassed Pakistan's military and inflamed
anti-U.S. sentiment across the country.
Number of US troops in Pakistan
reduced, Fusion Centers closed
In a clear
sign of Pakistan's deepening
mistrust of the United States,
Islamabad has told the Obama administration to
reduce the number of U.S.
troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence
liaison centers.
The
reduction of US military personnel is another blow to mutual ties, which are
enduring a rough patch. According to the Los Angeles Times, the move to close
the three facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the country from
approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of
incidents.
The U.S. special operations units have relied on the
three facilities, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta, to help coordinate operations on both sides of the
border, senior U.S.
officials said. The U.S.
units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the
centers are being shut down.
The two
intelligence centers in Peshawar were set up in 2009, one with the Pakistani
army's 11th Corps and the other with the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are
both headquartered in the city, capital of the troubled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
province. The third fusion cell was opened last year at the Pakistani army's
12th Corps headquarters in Quetta, a city long
used by Taliban fighters to mount attacks in Afghanistan's southern provinces.
The
closures have effectively stopped the U.S.
training of the Frontier Corps, a force that American officials had hoped could
help halt infiltration of Taliban and other militants into Afghanistan, the LA Times had quoted a senior U.S. military
officer as saying.
The
Frontier Corps' facility in Peshawar, staffed by
a handful of U.S.
special operations personnel, was located at Bala Hissar, an old fort,
according to a classified U.S. Embassy cable from 2009 that was recently made
public by WikiLeaks.
The cable,
which was first disclosed by Pakistan's
Dawn newspaper, hinted at U.S.
hopes that special operations teams would be allowed to join the paramilitary
units and the Special Services Group, a Pakistani army commando unit, in
operations against militants.
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