PAKISTAN:THE PAKISTANI government has promised to "weed out" elements in its ISI intelligence service sympathetic to the Taliban, after the US alleged collaboration including involvement in the bomb attack on India's embassy in Kabul last month which killed 58.
Pakistan officials deny any link, but privately confirm that they too think the ISI was involved.
The Bush administration, after seven years of praising Pakistan as one of its closest allies, is pressuring it to confront the Taliban and al-Qaeda based in its border areas. Failing that, the US wants permission for its forces to cross from Afghanistan to engage them.
The embassy attack and the claim of ISI involvement, which India has also made, has strained relations between Islamabad and Delhi and threatens to undermine a four-year-old peace initiative between the former enemies. The suicide bombing came against a background of concern inside Pakistan that India is building up its presence in Afghanistan, which Islamabad regards as its area of influence.
CIA deputy director Stephen Kappes visited Pakistan last month to put before the government what he claimed was evidence of links between the ISI, the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The New York Times reported yesterday that US intelligence agencies had intercepted communications between ISI officers and militants who attacked the embassy. A Pakistan government spokeswoman, Sherry Rehman, said there was no proof of ISI involvement. But she said "individuals" in the ISI are "probably acting on their own and going against official policy", adding that the authorities "need to identify these people and weed them out".
President Bush raised the issue at the White House this week when he met Pakistani prime minister Yousef Raza Gilani.
Alleged ISI involvement in the Kabul attack threatens to dominate a regional summit in Sri Lanka tomorrow in which both India and Pakistan are scheduled to participate. Tension between the two led this week to gun battles between their armed forces at the de facto border in the disputed region of Kashmir.
India's foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, told reporters in Sri Lanka yesterday that the embassy attack, as well as bombings of Indian cities, had adversely affected its peace initiative.
There are fears in Pakistan the US will intervene militarily in the country, with allegations such as that against the ISI to justify the action. But an attempt by the prime minister to bring the ISI under civilian control, apparently in response to US pressure, backfired spectacularly when the army refused last week to accept the reform. The order had to be reversed within hours.
- (Guardian service)