The 'trust deficit' between the United States and Pakistan has seemingly evaporated after the strategic dialogue between Washington and Islamabad in March, that also featured Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and Inter Services Intelligence director general Shujat Ahmad Pasha.If the remarks of Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism are anything to go by, the US no longer is suspicious of Pakistan playing a double game.
American official Raymond Davis, arrested for killing two Pakistanis in Lahore, may have headed a covert Central Intelligence Agency team that was tasked to secretly gather intelligence on the Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which the United States feels is getting out of the shadows of the Pakistan army to launch a campaign of jihad against it and Europe.
For three years now, Lashkar cadres have been pressurising their higher ups in Pakistani intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence to battle American troops, but they have always been pulled back. The reason? The ISI does not want the only outfit that it has complete control over to go out of hand.
Inter-Services Intelligence head Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, a close aide of Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is heading for a likely rare second term.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi would co-chair the first US-Pak Strategic Dialogue to be held in Washington on March 24.
In a startling disclosure, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence has admitted in the court that it had distributed huge amount of money to political parties and leaders including former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Zafarullah Jamali and Mohammad Khan Junejo.
A former leading Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence officer, who claimed to have been a mentor of Taliban, has been killed almost a year after he was kidnapped by militants in the Waziristan tribal region.
A Pakistani court barred the government from extraditing five Afghan Taliban leaders captured in the country, including Mullah Baradar, and asked the administration to explain its position in the matter on Friday.
Notwithstanding the recent arrest of high-value Taliban leaders in Pakistan in which the Inter Services Intelligence played a key role, top US Senators and officials have indicated that they continue to remain suspicious about the real intentions of the Pakistani intelligence agency in view of its links to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and other terror outfits.
The arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-in-command of the Taliban forces operating in Afghanistan, is being seen as a dramatic shift in the policies of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, which had hitherto covertly supported some of the organisation's top leaders.But experts warn that by helping the Central Intelligence Agency nab Baradar, the Pakistan government and the ISI will lose the sympathies of Mullah Omer-led Afghan Taliban.
In a major success, a top militant commander considered to be a close aide of elusive Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mohhamad Omar was captured from Pakistan's port city of Karachi.Mullah Baradar was captured from Karachi in a joint raid by personnel of the Inter-Services intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency. But Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid rejected the news, saying, "Baradar has not been arrested; it is a rumour."
'This is something the ISI would have wanted to prevent. There was no direct ISI involvement whatsoever,' claims American national security expert Harlan Ullman, who has close links with the Pakistani government and military.
'We want to contribute our bit to the issue. We are ready to do anything and help fight this problem. But remember, we also need support and not suspicion,' says Haj House Imam Ghulam Yahya Baksh
Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has been appointed the Al Qaeda chief following the killing of Osama bin Laden, is probably hiding in Pakistan and can be nabbed by the Inter Services Intelligence if it "really wants" to do so, a top United States Senator has said.
Oberoi hotel, one of the sites attacked during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, was not originally on the list of targets for surveillance given to David Headley by his Inter Services Intelligence handler. But the Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative made a video of it after filming Chabad House as he had an hour to spare before he could catch a movie.This was revealed by the LeT operative in his testimony before a Chicago court during co-accused Tahawwur Rana's recently-concluded trial.
Moulana Naseeruddin, was acquitted along with 12 others by a Gujarat Prevention of Terrorist Activities court on Wednesday in an Inter Services Intelligence backed terror conspiracy case, in a bid to avenge the post-Godhra communal riots in Gujarat.
In revelations that clearly show Inter Services Intelligence's role in the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley has told his interrogators that the Pakistani intelligence agency had paid Rs 25 lakh to Lashkar-e-Tayiba to purchase a boat, which terrorists used to travel from Karachi.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday regretted that Home Secretary G K Pillai was not 'defended' by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna when he was 'openly castigated' by Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi for his remarks that the Inter Services Intelligence had coordinated the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
A Mumbai lawyer and a Beed engineer joined arrested climate activist Disha Ravi in creating a protest toolkit backing the farmers' agitation with the aim of 'tarnishing the image of India' and collaborated with pro-Khalistani elements, Delhi Police officials said on Monday.
As the Chicago court prepares its verdict in the case of Pakistani-American terror accused Tawwahur Rana, Indian agencies wait with bated breath for the result.
Running a criminal syndicate of 5,000 members with strategic alliance in connivance with the Inter Services Intelligence, Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Al Qaeda, the Karachi-headquartered D-Company is an example of the 'criminal-terrorism' fusion model and poses a threat to United States' security interests in South Asia, a Congressional report has stated.
Raised by Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence for its proxy operations against India, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba has now become the largest terror group operating in the sub-continent and it also poses a potent threat to the United States, an American think-tank has said.
An Inter Services Intelligence agent, who was arrested in Agartala along with six Indian collaborators, has confessed during interrogation that he had entered Tripura via Bangladesh to go to Punjab to monitor army movement there and report to ISI headquarters, police said on Tuesday.
India may approach a New York court to be a party to a lawsuit, filed by the family of 26/11 victims Rabbi Gavriel Noah Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, to declare Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence as a terrorist group.
Former Pakistan President General Parvez Musharraf has conceded that his country's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) maintains link with militant commanders like Sirajuddin Haqqani, suspected of having masterminded the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.
General Ehsan Ul Haq, former director of the Inter Services Intelligence, has urged the United States to stop demonising the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and pressuring Pakistan to go after it, saying it's not a priority for the Pakistan army.
The listing in the Shuhada's (Martyrs') Corner of the website www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk named Naik Zulfiqar Ahmed as the ISI operative who died in New Delhi's Ganga Ram Hospital on November 16, 2007.
The powerful role of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence in Afghan insurgency is 'as clear as the sun in the sky', says a latest study.
It has been two years since the horrific 26/11 attacks shook Mumbai and India, but there are still plenty of lose ends in the case thanks to the fact the Pakistani spy agency Inter Services Intelligence and Lashkar-e-Tayiba relied on operatives from around the globe to execute the dastardly attacks, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
For Pakistan, it's a Catch-22 situation. Under pressure from the United States, it may have to chop and change the ISI set-up. But if it tinkers too much with the elite agency, Islamabad risks a more horrifying repurcussion. Vicky Nanjappa reports
In an informal chat, former Intelligence Bureau chief Ajit Doval tells Onkar Singh that Osama Bin Laden's death must have come as a blow to Al Queda. "But if you ask me whether the Islamic radicalism has been badly hit, I would say no."
Octopus Commandos, the anti-terror wing in Andhra Pradesh, arrested four suspected Inter-Services-Intelligence agents in Tirupati on Thursday from a private hotel located on the Mangalam road on the outskirts of the temple town.
An agent of the Inter Services Intelligence, carrying maps of vital defence installations, was arrested by the Punjab police on Saturday from near the Indian Air Force station in Mullanpur in Mohali district near Chandigarh. With the arrest of Irfan Ulla, the Punjab police claimed to have foiled another bid of the Pakistan-based ISI to revive militancy in Punjab. A pistol with 20 live cartridges, maps and photographs of IAF stations.
The son of a former Inter Services Intelligence official, who was abducted and killed by militants, has filed an application with the Pakistani police in which he has held popular TV anchor Hamid Mir and a Punjabi Taliban leader responsible for the murder.
Pakistan on Friday dismissed reports claiming Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar had fled from Quetta to Karachi, with the help of the Inter Services Intelligence, to avoid the possibility of being targeted by United States drones."This is ridiculous to say the least," Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters. He said there had been speculations about Omar's presence in Pakistan 'for years'.
The spies revealed that they were tasked by the ISI officer to revive militancy in Jammu by recruiting youth in the region.
Suicide bombers on Friday struck Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence, hitting its operational headquarters in the north-western city of Peshawar, and a nearby police station in Bannu, killing 20 people, including seven personnel of the spy agency. The strike on the spy agency and the police station left 85 people injured and came as 30,000 troops intensified their operation against the Taliban and foreign militants in lawless Waziristan.
Pakistan's Jang media group has formed a committee to ascertain whether well-known TV anchor Hamid Mir actually spoke to a Taliban operative about former Inter-Services Intelligence officer Khalid Khwaja who was eventually killed by militants.Mir has been at the centre of a controversy after several websites uploaded a 13-minute conversation he purportedly had with a Taliban operative. In the tape, Mir and the militant discuss the activities of Khwaja.
With cracks emerging in the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, its operatives are now joining the Punjabi Taliban, which is a growing threat not only for Indian but also Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa spoke to experts about the Indian government's decision to become party to a lawsuit in the United States against the Pakistan government and its spy agency Inter Services Intelligence over their involvement in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai
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