Weeks after the news that Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a drone strike there has been no confirmation on the same. India's intelligence agencies believe that rumour's of the Al Qaeda commander's death were spread by the Inter-Services Intelligence. Vicky Nanjappa analyses why.
The Lashkar-e-Tayiba used videos of the 2002 Gujarat riots to motivate David Coleman Headley, a co-accused in the 26/11 attacks, to carry out "jihad" against India, indicating how the incident is being used as a major recruiting tool by the banned Pakistani militant group.
While some reports say Sirajuddin Haqqani, the operational chief of Haqqani network has recently held a meeting with Afghan president Hamid Karzai in the presence of Pakistani Army chief Ashfaq Kiyani, Kabul-based sources reveal the meeting did not take place.
A top United States attorney has vowed to bring to justice the other six Pakistan-based defendants who have been named in the indictment filed by federal prosecutors before a Chicago court in Mumbai case. The six defendants are Al Qaeda leader Illyas Kashmiri, Lashkar-e-Tayiba commander Sajid Mir; Major Iqbal, said to be a serving Inter Services Intelligence officer and Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed alias Pasha, another LeT leader.
Pakistan's intelligence aganeyc, the Inter Service Intelligence, has activated its sleeper cells in the North East region to use the Indo-Bangladesh border route as a 'safe passage' to courier its men and materials into different parts of India. This was revealed by the arrested ISI agent, Momin Khan, to his interrogators in Tripura recently.
The United Nations probe into the killing of former premier Benazir Bhutto has hit a roadblock with the Pakistan government denying access to top military officials, including powerful army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The UN inquiry commission headed by Ambassador Heraldo Munoz had submitted a written request some time ago for access to senior military officials, including Kayani, former Inter Services Intelligence chief Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj.
A video of the Federal Bureau of Investigation interrogation of Tahawwur Rana, a key suspect in the Mumbai attacks, has been screened for the first time by the prosecution in his trial at a court in Chicago, in which he is shown talking about Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence giving weapons to co-accused David Headley.
Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Headley approached the Inter-Services Intelligence to help another co-accused in Mumbai attacks Tahawwur Rana to get back to Pakistan, according to a video recording produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation before a court in Chicago on Monday.
A top American military commander headed for Afghanistan on Tuesday said he would not be surprised by links between Pakistan's spy agency Inter State Intelligence and Islamist extremist organisations, who have established a safe haven in Pakistan's restive tribal region.
India has neither the intent nor the capability to pose a major threat to Pakistan. But the bogey of an India threat is kept alive in Pakistan mainly to help the military to ensure it relevance and dominance of the country, says Colonel (Dr) Anil Athale (retd)
Refuting reports about the arrest of a suspected Inter-Services Intelligence agent in Mumbai, the city police on Wednesday said Javed Abdul Gafoor Mozawala, is an Indian national who has been held for allegedly indulging in anti-national activities.
The National Investigating Agency has in its possession David Headley's 119-page interrogation report and sources say that it's clear that he has not wavered from what he had said last year. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
The mysterious Major Iqbal, who India suspects is a Pakistani army officer in the Inter-Services Intelligence, has now been identified as Chaudhery Khan by Mumbai terror accused David Headley. Headley also confirmed that Khan was the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks.
Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has reportedly been killed in Pakistan, an Afghanistan private television channel has reported.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference, has denied newspaper reports that he met Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt General Shuja Pasha during his Europe visit.
Branding Pakistani intelligence agencies including the Inter Services Intelligence as a 'rogue agency', the country's top nuclear scientist A Q Khan has said that it takes orders from the army chief and not the civilian government. Charging that the ISI operated outside the law and totally ignored court orders, Khan, in a scathing attack on the military intelligence agency, said it was being used against politicians and as an 'extended arm of the dictators'.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday dismissed a report that the Inter-Services Intelligence agency is funding, training and guiding the Taliban in Afghanistan as "rubbish", saying Talibanisation is not good for both countries.
Inter Services Intelligence's powerful chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha has warned India that any Abbottabad-like attack by it would invite a befitting response from Pakistan. Pasha's warning came as he addressed the in-camera joint session of the Senate and National Assembly held behind closed doors on Friday. Pasha is facing fire over the inability of the ISI to track down Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, where he was living.
The imminent trial of Pakistan-born Canadian citizen Tahawwur Rana, co-accused with David Headley in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, could reveal Inter Services Intelligence's links to terrorists, according to a news report.
The confidential document shows that the then British Foreign Secretary David Miliband had called Zardari, asking him to send the ISI chief to India, to which the President readily agreed. He, however, was overruled by the Pakistani Army led by General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
Pakistan is preparing to block a lawsuit in a United States court that alleges complicity of its spy chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha in the audacious 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, on the grounds that it will pour "gasoline on the fire" of India-Pakistan relations.
Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha has embarked on a foreign trip to an undisclosed location against the backdrop of reports that he may step down over the debacle of the Pakistani military's failure to detect Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden's presence in the country.
Relatives of a Rabbi, who was gunned down along with his pregnant wife during the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, have filed a wrongful death suit against Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and Lashkar-e-Tayiba at a Brooklyn court. Rabbi Gavriel Noah Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, who were originally from Brooklyn, were killed when the attackers took over the Chabad Lubavitch centre at Nariman House in November 2008. They were slaughtered in front of their two-year-old son.
Pakistan's failure to trace Osama bin Laden to the compound near Abbottabad where he was killed was an "embarrassment" for the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, BBC reported on Tuesday.
Vicky Nanjappa predicts embarrasing days ahead for Pakistani intelligence agency ISI in the aftermath of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's killing
Acknowledging that there is 'an ingress of the Inter Services Intelligence in every terrorist group', former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has alleged that Afghanistan is under the influence of Indian intelligence agencies and he has documentary evidence against it. "Afghan intelligence, Afghan president, Afghan governmentdon't talk of them. I know what they do. They are, by design, they mislead the world. They talk against Pakistan," he said.
India on Sunday said it was good that the Obama administration recognised the links between the Inter-Services Intelligence and Haqqani network of Taliban, amid a raging United States-Pakistan row over the spy agency's support to the dreaded terror outfit.
Former Central Intelligence Agency South Asia analyst, Lisa Curtis, now a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, recalled how in 1995, when she served in Islamabad as a diplomat, the Pakistan-based terror groups that were funded, armed and supported by the Inter-Services Intelligence specifically to launch attacks in Kashmir against Indian security forces, also had strong links to the Taliban.
Did Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence 'give up' its spies as pawns to launch an offensive against the Taliban militia in the country's North Waziristan region?
The trial of Pakistani-Canadian Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative Tahawwur Rana, co-accused with David Headley in the 26/11 case, is set to begin in Chicago on May 16. If insiders are to be believed, Rana is likely to implicate Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence in the Mumbai terror attacks, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
'While Kasab was helpful in the investigation of the 26/11 terrorist attack, he was of no use in detecting and neutralising Lashkar's sleeper cells and the Indian Mujahideen.'
Sources told rediff.com that Gupta had begun showing her first signs of dissatisfaction with the Indian administration while she was in Baghdad, where she was reportedly humiliated by one of her senior colleagues. Gupta had reportedly shared her anger with others and the ISI, which is always on the lookout for such officers, got wind of this
Terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba has been trying for some time to let its partner Harkat-ul-Jihadi carry out subversive operations in India, as it wants to concentrate on staging a major strike in the United States. Lashkar is actively patronised by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence. After the 26/11 terror strikes, several Lashkar cadres wanted to cross over to Afghanistan and plan a strike in the US. But the ISI turned down this plan.
Pakistan expressed hope on Tuesday night that the issue of an Indian woman diplomat being arrested on charges of spying for the Inter-Services-Intelligence would not overshadow the expected meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani in Thimphu.
The Indian society and the families of the 26/11 terror attack victims should start a campaign against the plea," former additional secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, B Raman said at an anti-terrorism seminar in Mumbai.
The United States on Wednesday dismissed as 'false and outrageous' the allegations made by former Inter-Services Intelligence agency chief Hamid Gul that the United States government was involved in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.Noting that Gul had 'repeatedly asserted the outrageous and baseless claim' during appearances on two TV news channels, a spokesman for the US embassy said, "The US rejects this and other false allegations."
"It is interesting that the US claims to want a democratic Pakistan, but whenever there's a congressional delegation that goes to Pakistan, they don't meet their counterparts in the National Assembly. They all want to meet General Kayani and General Pasha, because they understand that's where the power lies," said Christina Fair of the Georgetown University.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has categorically denied any links with the Taliban.The Daily Times quoted ISI Director General Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha as saying that the ISI is a professional agency and does not have links with any militant outfit, including the Taliban. Pasha's remarks came during a meeting with Central Intelligence Agency chief Leon Panetta, National Security Adviser Lieutenant General James Jones and other officials.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is pushing the Taliban to attack American troops and their allies based in Afghanistan, the media here has said, close on the heels of a White House report that slammed Islamabad for not doing enough to battle terrorists holed up near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Pakistan and its spy agency Inter Services Intelligence is supporting the United States' war in Afghanistan simply to ensure that Indians do not get strategic 'advantage' in the war- ravaged country