Amid pressure from India and the US to rein in the Inter-Services Intelligence, President Pervez Musharraf has come to its rescue saying any attempt to target the spy agency will weaken Pakistan as it is "the first line of defence" and lashed out at his detractors for calling him an American stooge.
After Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conveyed his concern over the Indian embassy attack in Kabul, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Colombo and discussed the incident for which Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has been blamed.
Bush confronted Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani last week during his Washington visit with evidence of involvement by the ISI in the deadly July 7 attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, which left nearly 60 people, includingfour Indians, dead, The Sunday Times reported. The US president warned Pakistan of "serious action" if one more attack in Afghanistan or elsewhere is traced back to it, the report said.
Confusion persists over which wing of the Pakistan government is currently controlling the powerful ISI agency, which is at the centre of a controversy after being linked by US intelligence agencies to the suicide bombings on the Indian embassy in Kabul.
Refusing to comment on an emissary being sent to Pakistan to confront concerns about the Inter Services Intelligence working with militants, the Bush administration on Thursday said the United States was working with Islamabad in its fight against terror."I have no comment on that story," White House press secretary Dana Perino said, adding that she was not in a position to comment on how Pakistan was faring on the war on terror."We will continue to work with them," she said.
Till now, the ISI, the premier external counter-intelligence outfit, was working under the Defence Ministry but Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani relocated the agency by placing it under the Interior Ministry, headed by his adviser Rehman Malik, The News daily said.
North-eastern insurgent groups are operating from Bangladesh and they have established links with the Inter Services Intelligence, the government on Wednesday informed the Rajya Sabha saying the matter has been taken up with Pakistan.
Baloch political leader Dr Jumma Khan Marri on the struggle for greater autonomy from Pakistan and a greater share of the region's natural resources.
This is for the first time in several years a news report has surfaced about the hiding location of the Al-Qaeda chief, who is Osama bin Laden's mentor and successor.
A decade before 9/11, plans to use aircraft for terror strikes were mooted by the ISI-backed Punjab terrorist group to target India, a former top intelligence official said.
Terming the Mumbai attack as a spectacular act of terror, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence would have rewarded each of the Mumbai attackers Rs 2 lakh had they returned alive.
Naga splinter groups impatient with stalled talks as well as rebel Manipuri groups who have a stake in disrupting upcoming elections to the state assembly, are believed to be regrouping in the borderlands of China's Yunnan province and Myanmar, taking advantage of the turmoil in the latter by using it as a transit corridor.
Dismissing India's contention that ISI could be involved in the recent blasts in various cities, Pakistan on that such allegations could vitiate the atmosphere for the ongoing Composite Dialogue process. "Pakistan rejects the allegations leveled by the National Security Adviser of India, M K Narayanan, about the suspected involvement of ISI in Ludhiana, Ajmer and Mecca Masjid blasts," Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Sadiq said in Islamabad on Thursday.
About the perception that the ISI was a rogue agency that was out of the civilian government's control and indulged in its own agenda, Pasha said, "I report regularly to the president and take orders from him." Many may think in a different direction, and everyone is allowed to think differently, but no one can dare disobey a command or even do something that was not ordered, he added
Terror operations can never succeed without the support of a local module. According to Intelligence Bureau officials, there is a need to dig deeper into the role played by such modules.
Kiyani is a non-controversial officer, who had in the past not come to notice for any dubious association with the Taliban or Al Qaeda or any of Pakistan's fundamentalist organisations.
The government on Monday said it does not have inputs to suggest that the Naxals have established links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. "There are no inputs to suggest that the Naxals have established links with the ISI," Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal told the Lok Sabha during the Question Hour. He said as many as 217 security personnel and 441 civilians were killed in Naxal violence and action against them till November 30.
On January 1 in 2018, violence erupted at an event to mark 100 years of the Bhima-Koregaon battle, leaving one dead and several injured, including 10 policemen.
The terror suspect's father reacts to reports that his son has been killed in Pakistan.
Both were engaged in spying for the ISI and a number of documents related to Indian army were recovered from their possession, he said.
India has proof that the Inter Services Intelligence was involved in planning the Mumbai terror attacks and training the terrorists who killed 183 people during a 60-hour siege of the country's financial capital, sources said in New Delhi on Thursday. The names of trainers and the places where meticulous training took place are also known to the government, the sources said
Former Central Investigative Agency deputy director John McLaughlin, a 32-year veteran of the agency who has studied the Lashkar-e-Tayiba extensively, believes that while the "Pakistani intelligence was instrumental in helping to create the LeT in the outset, these days it's not at all clear that the Pakistani intelligence has any direct control over this group."He said he was skeptical that even rogue elements in the Inter Services Intelligence today held any sway.
Nawaz Sharif's brother Shahbaz may hold talks with Pakistani Army generals soon to negotiate a deal before the deposed premier returns home, most probably on September 9, a leading daily reported on Monday.
India on Wednesday said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence still continues to train terror groups. "There is no change in the attitude of the ISI to train terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad. Their attacks are likely to continue," National Security Advisor M K Narayanan said.
Top Taliban leader Mullah Omar was sheltered by Pakistan's powerful spy agency Inter-Services intelligence after the outfit's leadership fled from Afghanistan in 2001, according to an email received by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton during her tenure.
'If there is a face-off between the army and people, the leadership may lose control of the army.'
With the five-member Joint Investigation Team from Pakistan having reached Pathankot to begin probe into the terror attack on the Indian Air Force Base, the Shiv Sena on Tuesday slammed the centre for 'welcoming' the team which also has a member from the Inter-Services Intelligence, saying that Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief Hafiz Saeed could also be a part of the team and no one would know.
Security analsyst abd rediff columnist B Raman on why a new ISI chief was anointed in Pakistan.
Intelligence sleuths have started probing the links of Shailesh Jadhav, an ex-armyman arrested by the Pune police for involvement with the Inter Services Intelligence.
The arrests were made on the basis of confessions made by arrested ULFA cadre Manoj Tamuly, who was allegedly trained by an Inter Services Intelligence operative.
"Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency imparted the training to Gurpreet Singh," said Punjab Director-General of Police N P S Aulakh. Gurpreet Singh and two other suspected Babbar Khalsa militants were arrested near the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar on December 25. Aulakh said that Gurpreet went to Pakistan with a jatha of Sikh pilgrims and he was trained with another terrorist Harminder Singh. Gurpreet returned in mid-2007 to revive the terrorist module in the state.
The ISI has achieved their desired strategic depth by creating a Pushtunistan across Af-Pak that they control. The US and India can now look forward to more 9/11s and 26/11s.
The Financial Intelligence Unit last month marked 200 transactions in India -- running into Rs 2000 crore -- as terror-financed. Now, it has commenced its probe to trace the origin of the funds.
The increasing bonhomie in the Indo-Afghan relationship had posed a challenge to the ISI, which is interested in regaining its lost 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan.
Maj Hamza of the Inter-Services Intelligence and his assistant Subedar Saeed were killed when their car came under attack in Rashakai area by suspected pro-Taliban militants.
The visit of CBI Director Vijay Shankar to Pakistan was cancelled following the car bomb blast outside the Indian Mission in Kabul and India accusing Pakistan of the Inter Services Intelligence's role in the same. Shankar was slated to leave for Islamabad on Monday along with a team of officials from the home and external affairs ministries for a meeting with Pakistan's Federal Investigating Agency.
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