Pakistan military strongly denies BBC’s report on Taliban links with ISI

Pakistan military strongly denies BBC’s report on Taliban links with ISI

Pakistan military has strongly denied the BBC report that accused Pakistani military, along with the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), for protecting and arming Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda.

BBC Two is running a two-series documentary programme by the name of ‘Secret Pakistan’ whose first episode was broadcasted last Wednesday on October 26, 2011. BBC claimed a number of Afghan Taliban commanders
have told them that the Pakistani ISI gives them training and weapons. According to BBC, Taliban commanders especially ‘Mullah Qaseem’ also disclosed that ISI gives them a place to hide.

Major General Athar Abbas has however strongly denied the report, as he said ISI has never provided Taliban troops any financial aid or even a single bullet.

Meanwhile, a former head of Afghan intelligence told BBC that Afghanistan had given Osama bin Laden’s information to Pakistan’s former president, General Perez Musharraf, in 2006 but there were no actions
taken until the US army raided Pakistan in May, 2011 and killed Laden, who was one of the world’s most wanted men for the past many years.

Major General Abbas was not happy with BBC’s report, as he thinks the report is totally incorrect and it has effected the image of Pakistan’s army a lot.

“We consider that this report is highly biased, it is one-sided, it doesn’t have the version of the side which is badly hit or affected by this report,” Major General Athar Abbas, spokesman for the Pakistani
military, told Reuters.

“So therefore, other than that, it’s factually incorrect.”

The Deputy Commander of United States in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, had also blamed Pakistan Army for allowing insurgents to fire on American troops across the border in Afghanistan,
as he remarked the rockets which are being fired on them appears to come from Pakistani military posts.

“In some locations from time to time you will see what just appears to us to be a collaboration… or at a minimum a looking the other way,” Scaparrotti said.

Major General Abbas also replied to Scaparrotti by rejecting all of his accusations.

“I completely reject this, this is wrong and baseless,” Major Abbas told AFP.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=1942

Posted by Imran Shaukat Khan on Oct 28 2011. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry