‘ISI, CIA set up Haqqani network’

The ISI maintains active contacts with elements of a banned Afghan terror group - the Haqqani network - which allegedly orchestrated two bomb blasts at the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 and October 2009. Abhishek Sharan reports

The ISI maintains active contacts with elements of a banned Afghan terror group - the Haqqani network - which allegedly orchestrated two bomb blasts at the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 and October 2009.

HT Image

Lieutenant general Ahmed Shuja Pasha, then ISI DG, made the rare admission in his deposition to the Abbottabad Commission. “Regarding the so-called Haqqani network, the DG ISI said it had been created by both the CIA and the ISI against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” the report said.

“The fighting core of the Haqqani network in Afghanistan had been placed on the UN sanctions list but its non-combat members were not placed on the list.

The ISI was in contact with only these non-sanctioned members of the Haqqani network responsible for administrative and other matters,” Pasha had said, according to the report.

Pasha told the Commission, “UK, Italy and some other countries were also in touch with them.” Referring to the group’s founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, Pasha said, he had allegedly been “invited to the White House by president Reagan.”