ISI helping Taliban: NATO

Pakistan’s intelligence agency is helping the Taliban to pursue an insurgency in Afghanistan that has seen a 50 per cent hike in attacks in some areas this year, the NATO commander said.

Pakistan’s intelligence agency is helping the Taliban to pursue an insurgency in Afghanistan that has seen a 50 per cent hike in attacks in some areas this year, the NATO commander said.

HT Image

The number of foreign fighters, including Europeans, is also increasing here while NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) still lacks the soldiers it needs, US General David D McKiernan said.

“There certainly is a level of ISI complicity in the militant areas in Pakistan and organisations such as the Taliban,” the four-star general said, echoing allegations by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and others. “I can’t say to what level of leadership that goes to but there are indications of complicity on the part of ISI... to the extent that they are facilitating these militant groups that come out of the tribal areas in Pakistan.”

Pak clashes kill 6 civilians, 20 Taliban Pakistani warplanes killed at least six civilians in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan after fierce clashes in which 20 Taliban militants were killed.