Taliban beware: this one might have your name on it

It has long been suspected that Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate (ISI) is in bed with the Taliban – this latest report shows that the spooks are assisting Top Turban Mullah Omar in moving around the country to escape American UAVs:

Fearing that Taliban supremo Mullah Omar might be targetted by US drones, Pakistan’s ISI has helped him to flee from the border town of Quetta to the mega port city of Karachi, where he has established a new Shura council.

One-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban recently found refuge from potential US attacks in Karachi with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) assistance, the Washington Times reported quoting US intelligence officials.

“Mullah Omar travelled to Karachi last month after the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.  He inaugurated a new senior leadership council in Karachi, a city that so far has escaped US and Pakistani counter-terrorism campaigns,” the officials said.

The paper said the ISI helped Mullah Omar move from Quetta, where they felt he was exposed to attacks by unmanned US drones.

“The development reinforces suspicions that the ISI, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s to expand Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, is working against US interests in Afghanistan as the Obama administration prepares to send more US troops to fight there,” the daily said.

Bruce Riedel, a CIA veteran and analyst on Al Qaida and the Taliban, confirmed that Mullah Omar had been spotted in Karachi recently, the daily said.

“Some sources claim the ISI decided to move him further from the battlefield to keep him safe” from US drone attacks, Riedel was quoted as saying.

“There are huge madrassas in Karachi where Mullah Omar could easily be kept,” he said.

Riedel noted that there had been few suicide bombings in Karachi, which he attributed to the Taliban and Al Qaida not wanting to “foul their own nest”.

At the same time, the daily said so far there has been no indication that the top Al Qaida leadership too had moved to Karachi.

Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are still thought to be in the tribal region of Pakistan on Afghanistan’s border, he said.

However, the newspaper said according to intelligence officials, other mid-level Al Qaida operatives who facilitate the travel and training of foreign fighters have moved to the Karachi metropolitan area, which with 18 million people is Pakistan’s most populous city.

“One reason, Al Qaida and Taliban leaders are relocating to Karachi is because they believe US drones do not strike there,” an official was quoted as saying adding that it is a densely populated urban area.

Pakistan receives billions of dollars in international aid from the US and the rest of the developed world. Yet its government has signally failed to keep this rogue intelligence agency in check.

In addition to helping the Taliban avoid capture and assisting their attacks in the Coalition forces in Afghanistan, it is widely believed in informed circles that they facilitated the horrific Mumbai massacres of last year, by among other things training the Muslim attackers in marine navigation, in order  that they could sail into their destination undetected.

Isn’t it about time international aid donors started to make such aid conditional on Pakistan being a reliable ally in the first place?

Or are we just being played for Jizya?

[Source: NDTV, New Delhi)

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