Posted on 08/05/2007 7:03:56 AM PDT by Ghayyour
Islamabad, Aug 5 : The Governor of Ghazni province of Afghanistan has accused Pakistani Taliban of working in tandem with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and holding South Korean nationals hostage.
"In the beginning, it was the local Taliban, but after a few days, Pakistani Taliban and ISI officers disguised as Taliban arrived in the region, and they took control of the situation," Governor Merajuddin Pattan said.
Afghan officials often accuse Pakistan's ISI of secretly supporting and harbouring Taliban insurgents.
However, Pakistan strongly denies the charge, The News reported.
Pakistani officials were not immediately available for comment on Pattan's accusation, which could spark another downturn in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Taliban militants seized 23 Korean church volunteers from a bus in Ghazni province on the main road south from Kabul on July 20.
The kidnappers have shot dead two male hostages after Kabul refused to give in to their demand and free Taliban prisoners.
Pattan, a soft-spoken US-educated economist, has been closely involved in talks between the Taliban kidnappers and an Afghan negotiating team sent from Kabul.
He said that during one telephone conversation, he had heard one of the kidnappers translating from Pashto to Urdu, Pakistan's national language.
He also noted that the kidnappers had stopped setting deadlines since South Korean presidential envoy Baek Jong-chun travelled to Islamabad to ask the Musharraf regime and political leaders such as Fazal-ur-Rehman to use their influence to obtain the hostages' release.
"I spoke to the Korean diplomats and I told them that if you want this problem to be ended very soon, please put pressure on Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, they will put pressure on the ISI," Pattan said.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, and asked for help to free the hostages.
Pattan accused ISI of trying to show Afghanistan was weak and use the hostage crisis to overshadow a Jirga between Afghan and Pakistani tribal elders next week that aims to find common ways to combat the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Pakistan is the heaven of terrorists.
No problem the lefty Obomba is gonna obomba them. LOL.
If you have read any of Yosef Bodansky’s books on terrorism (especially his one on Bin Laden), this report will be no surprise. The Pakistan ISI has been continually involved in funding and training Islamic terrorism. Contrary to US impressions Benazir Bhutto’s government was even worse than Musharraf’s today.
Where did you read this ? Benazir Bhutto in person denies that her government supported the Taliban or aided them. But that does not mean that the ISI did not.
Just look at the independence and insouciance that the ISI displayed over the Daniel Pearl kidnapping.
As I said, you need to read Yosef Bodansky’s books, especially his biography of Bin Laden. Bodansky is a middle east expert who was the former Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Yes, I agree that Bhutto always puts on a pro-Western face when she gives interviews in the West, but when in Pakistan she is has been very pro-militant Islam. Bodansky documents this in his books.
Bhutto or any Pakistani Prime Minister since General Ayub Khan took power in the early 60s had to give deference to the Army on issues like Kashmir,Nuclear weapons,relations with China among others.Bhutto had to sing these tunes,whether she wanted to or not.
“The current world view of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto’s Islamabad is a direct continuation of the vision of her father — Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. The political vision of Mr. Bhutto was crystallized as a historical legacy of the 1971 dismemberment of Pakistan. The new Pakistan must base its policy on Islamic character and look westwards — to the Hub of Islam — for identity and belonging. He considered Central Asia an extension of the non-Arab Muslim World that Pakistan would bring with it to the Hub in order to expand its non-Arab component. The active support for the armed liberation struggle in Kashmir was defined by Mr. Bhutto as a major way of proving and demonstrating Pakistan’s commitment to Islamic solidarity and values. Extremely close strategic relations with the PRC, including Beijing’s strategic guarantees and assistance in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, were considered the foundations of Islamabad’s ability to deter an inevitable clash with the US and a possible war with India. Mr. Bhutto stressed that the US is inherently hostile to Islam because it refused to accept the drastic changes in world order advocated by the Muslims. Indeed, Mr. Bhutto’s military nuclear effort was motivated as much by the determination to deliver the Islamic Bomb that would make Pakistan a Muslim World leader, as by the need to counter-balance India’s military nuclear program. The validity of these principles has been stressed repeatedly by Mrs. Benazir Bhutto as of the fall of 1993.”
For the rest see Bodansky’s essay: Pakistan’s Nuclear Brinkmanship; as well as his book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on the United States
Bhutto’s world view is more or less irrevelant given that it’s the(Punjabi dominated) Pakistani army which has always controlled Pakistan strategic relations irrespective of what she says(who happens to be a Sindhi)
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