X Posted from the ISI News and Discussions thread.
arun wrote:The Guantánamo Bay files leaked by Wikileaks shows that the Intelligence Agency of the Military of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the ISI, is considered by the US as a Islamic Terrorist organisation.
The leaked document shows the ISI listed as an “Associated Force” “linked to militant forces and organizations with which al-Qaida, the al-Qaida network, or the Taliban had or has an established working, supportive, or beneficiary relationship for the achievement of common goals”.
The UK’s Guardian:
Guantánamo Bay files: Pakistan's ISI spy service listed as terrorist group
Anyone linked to Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate should be treated like al-Qaida or Taliban, interrogators told
Jason Burke
Monday 25 April 2011 10.46 BST
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.
"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. …………………
The Guardian
The document itself is available on the New York Times website.
Click here and then scroll down till “Matrix of Threat Indicators for Enemy Combatants” appears. Check out Page 16 of that document.
The ISI is mentioned as the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) and is on a table that has been prepared by the US to show “Associated forces are those militant forces and organizations with which al-Qaida, the al-Qaida network, or the Taliban had or has an established working, supportive, or beneficiary relationship for the achievement of common goals.”
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Extract dealing with the links of the Intelligence arm of Armed Forces of The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate aka ISI, with Islamic Terrorist grous from the interview of US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer by NDTV’s Prannoy Roy.
Note that Ambassador Roemer does not dispute Prannoy Roys assertion that “Major Iqbal” is “a serving major in the Pakistan Army”.
Prannoy Roy: You talked about Headley and remember we talked earlier about how eventually things are going to emerge from what you said. Now we've just heard recently about four Pakistanis being indicted for 26/11, coming out of Headley's statement. In fact, one is a serving Major in the Pakistan Army, Iqbal, what is America is going to do about this?
Timothy Roemer: I think this case, taken forward by the Justice Department, which is attached to the trial in Chicago that is going to begin on May 16, where we are trying Rana and Headley, who has plea bargained and will serve a life sentence in America for his role in 26/11 atrocities and the terror attacks on India which killed 6 Americans. This is an interesting case. The United States legal system has decided to go after four more individuals, in addition to Headley and Rana. You mentioned a Major Iqbal as well and there is an individual by the name Sajeed Mir. This shows, I think Prannoy, that the United States is not only working very closely with India to prevent a future 9/11 or 26/11, not only cooperating to bring people to justice who attack our respective countries, but also trying to do more and more sharing every day intelligence, sharing sensitive technologies, working shoulder to shoulder together to target people, in a future, that might be involved in things that threaten both our countries. I have to tell you too that we just completed, in the last couple of days, a major training programme in Los Angeles, California for forty Indian chiefs of states and district police personnel, to better understand our system of forensics and best practices in our government, a whole government approach to try to prevent terrorist attacks. So this latest series of indictments proves once again that the United States and India are not only working closely as global partners on counter terrorism, but also share a lot of the same goals and are targeting some of the same people.
Prannoy Roy: Now the Guantanamo files have shown that the ISI in Pakistan has been listed as a terrorist organisation just like the Al-Qaeda. So the frustration in India is that that America knows all this, but there is not enough being done to curb the ISI and Lashkar, because of America's own interest in Afghanistan, and you need the supply routes to Afghanistan. So when are we actually going to see action, based on what you already know, that the ISI is a terrorist organisation?
Timothy Roemer: First of all I think we need to acknowledge that with the United States strongly encouraging Pakistan to do more, that Pakistan has done more in the last eighteen months about the extremism that threatens their internal stability; that they are doing more to take on their problems, the extremism within the country. Secondly I would have to respectfully disagree with you, that the United States has been very direct, in saying to Pakistan, that we have concerns that the ISI has connections to some of these different groups. Secretary Clinton, General Jones, when he was NSA, have all been very direct to Pakistan that they have to do more about extremism within the country...
Prannoy Roy: But if they do, they do nothing, they kind of just look at America and kind of ignore you and then there is no response. So you know all this and nothing concrete happens?
Timothy Roemer: Well we know that Lashkar-e-Toiba and Al Qaida and other groups are not only a threat to Pakistan, and an unstable Pakistan is a threat to India and a threat to the region. The United States and India are working more and more closely as global partners, to try to build the capacity in India to prevent terrorist attacks, whether they emanate from Pakistan or someplace else. They are working closer and closer to share information to prevent attacks like 26/11, and they are respecting the reach that Lashkar-e-Toiba and Al Qaida have, not only in this region. I think the United States more and more recognises the group like Lashkar-e-Toiba as a regional or a global terrorist group, and one that we're doing more and more to address, not only in Pakistan, but also in the reach outside of Pakistan, and I think it is very important to recognise this and give credit to the United States for this. When I took this job two years ago, again it was unthinkable that you would see the United States talking about the Lashkar-e-Toiba in same kind of a way that we talked about Al Qaida and other terrorist groups. Now when you have different individuals come in to India and visit, whether it be our State Department people or be military people, they will often mention Lashkar as one of the most lethal threats with regional reach and global aspirations, along with Al Qaida.
Much more on the Islamic Terrorist supporting ways of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan here:
Full transcript: Timothy Roemer speaks to NDTV
