A16 From Page One
pakistan from A1
every group.” Initial reports said the arrest was made in February, but U.S. officials say that it oc- curred in late January. U.S. officials think that Paki- stan continues to pursue a hedg- ing strategy in seeking to main- tain relationships with an array of entities — including the U.S. and Afghan governments, as well as insurgent networks — struggling to shape the outcome in Afghani- stan, even as it aggressively bat- tles the Pakistani branch of the Taliban. The ISI wants “to be able to re- sort to the hard-power option of
S
KLMNO
SUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2010
U.S. officials say Pakistani spy agency still helps Afghan Taliban
supporting groups that can take Kabul,” the Afghan capital, if the United States suddenly leaves, said a U.S. military adviser briefed on the matter. The ISI’s re- lationship with the Afghan Tali- ban was forged under similar cir- cumstances in the 1990s, when the spy service backed the fledg- ling Islamist movement as a solu- tion to the chaos that followed the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Pakistan denies charges
In interviews in Islamabad,
Pakistani intelligence officials said the ISI is committed to dis- mantling insurgent groups and
denied that any Taliban opera- tives had been released after be- ing captured. “It is our policy that we will go against these people,” a Pakistani intelligence official said. The CIA and the ISI are “working like this,” he said, clasp- ing his hands together. U.S. officials concur that the collaboration between the CIA and the ISI has improved sub- stantially, but they said they see ongoing signs that some ISI oper- atives are providing sanctuary and other assistance to factions of the Taliban when their CIA coun- terparts are not around. “They did, in fact, capture and release a couple,” said a U.S. mili-
tary official involved in discus- sions with Pakistan, adding that the ISI’s purported decision to do so “speaks to how hard it is to change your DNA.” Pakistani officials acknowledge ISI contacts with the Taliban but describe them as benign. They note that an intelligence service is supposed to monitor militant groups operating in the country. “There may be certain individ- uals who may not like American policy, but that does not mean they will not do their duty,” said the Pakistani intelligence official, adding that the capture of Bara- dar in Karachi was one of 63 CIA- ISI operations carried out over
the past year. The U.S. military adviser said the senior Taliban figures later re- leased were detained in Baluchi- stan, a province that encompasses the city of Quetta, where Moham- mad Omar and other Afghan Tali- ban leaders are thought to have taken refuge after the 2001 U.S.- led invasion of Afghanistan drove them out of power. The releases occurred in Janu-
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ary and February, officials said, around the time the ISI conduct- ed a series of raids that led to the capture of Baradar and reportedly four other senior Taliban figures. Among them were “shadow gov- ernors” who unofficially preside over swaths of territory in Af- ghanistan. U.S. officials said there are questions about whether one of the arrests occurred. Pakistani se- curity officials said in February that Maulvi Abdul Kabir, thought by some to be a member of the core Taliban leadership known as the Quetta shura, had been cap- tured in the northwestern district of Nowshera. But U.S. officials said there has been no evidence of the arrest and now suspect that Kabir was never detained.
Under U.S. pressure
Pakistan has been pressured re-
peatedly to sever its ties to the Tal- iban since the Sept. 11, 2001, at- tacks. As recently as November, President Obama sent a letter to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zar- dari warning that the Islamabad government’s use of insurgent groups to advance its interests “cannot continue.” Since 2001, the CIA has fun- neled hundreds of millions of dol- lars to the ISI, which has helped track down al-Qaeda operatives and provided targeting informa- tion for an escalating campaign of drone strikes. Over the past sever- al years, Pakistan also has launched military operations in its tribal belt aimed at rooting out insurgent groups.
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Kissinger canceled a U.S. warning against carrying out interna- tional political assassinations that was to have gone to Chile and two neighboring nations just days before a former ambassador was killed by Chilean agents on Washington’s Embassy Row in 1976, a newly released State De- partment cable shows. Whether Kissinger played a role in blocking the delivery of the warning to the governments of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay has long been a topic of contro- versy. The Sept. 16, 1976, cable, which was discovered in recent weeks by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research organiza- tion, is among tens of thousands of declassified State Department documents recently made avail- able. In 1976, Chile, Argentina and
Uruguay were engaged in a pro- gram of repression code-named Operation Condor that targeted those governments’ political op- ponents throughout Latin Amer- ica, Europe and even the United States.
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CIA, the State Department be- came concerned that Condor in- cluded plans for political assassi- nations around the world and drafted a stern warning against such killings. In the Sept. 16, 1976 cable, the topic of one paragraph is listed as “Operation Condor,” preceded by the words “(KISSINGER, HENRY A.) SUBJECT: ACTIONS TAKEN.” The cable states that the “secre- tary declined to approve message to Montevideo,” Uruguay, “and has instructed that no further ac- tion be taken on this matter.” Jessica LePorin, a spokeswom- an for Kissinger, said the former secretary of state had dealt many years ago with questions con- cerning the cancellation of the warnings to the South American governments and had no further comment on the matter. On Sept. 21, 1976, agents of
Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet planted a car bomb and exploded it on a District street, killing for- mer ambassador Orlando Lete- lier, an outspoken Pinochet critic.
— Associated Press
“There may be certain
individuals who may not like American policy, but that does not mean they will not do their
duty.”
— Pakistani intelligence officer
Officials from both countries said those efforts have intensified in the past 12 months. Pakistan recently permitted the
United States to put in place addi- tional CIA operatives and eaves- dropping equipment. Officials said U.S.-provided communica- tions intercepts helped lead the ISI to Baradar, but the Pakistani agency has requested equipment of its own. “We are extremely dependent on the Americans for signals” in- telligence, the Pakistani intelli- gence official said. “We have been crying for them to give us satellite telephone intercept capability. We do not have that to date.” Even after the Baradar arrest, some U.S. intelligence officials cautioned against seeing the cap- ture as a decisive turn. High-ranking U.S. intelligence
officials acknowledge that they have a very limited understand- ing of the ISI. CIA veterans who have worked closely with the Pakistani agency describe it as sprawling and so compartmental- ized that units working alongside the CIA might have little knowl- edge of the activities of the “S” di- rectorate, which maintains ties to insurgent groups. CIA officials think that the ISI’s
connection to the Taliban is ac- tive, but “it’s not clear how high that goes or who knows about it,” said the U.S. counterterrorism of- ficial. “The Pakistanis did a sharp change of policy after 9/11, and it’s not certain everybody got the memo — or read it if they did.”
millergreg@washpost.com
Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Islamabad contributed to this report.
Kissinger cut off warning against killings
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