Pakistan: Accusations Rejected

NEW DELHI – INDIAN Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused Pakistan on Tuesday of acting irresponsibly, saying November’s Mumbai attacks must have had support from some of its nuclear-armed neighbour’s official agencies.

Mr Singh’s comments were the latest in almost daily government criticism of Pakistan, and a sign that New Delhi has become increasingly frustrated at what it sees as Islamabad’s slowness at identifying and arresting the attack’s planners.

India blames Pakistan militants for the coordinated strikes in November by 10 gunmen that killed 179 people and have revived tension between two nations that have fought three wars since 1947. Pakistan denies any involvement by state agencies.

Mr Singh said investigations, including by intelligence agencies from some of the foreign countries whose nationals were killed in the attack, had also suggested official complicity.

Pakistan dissolving military spy agency’s political wing

Reuters

Monday, November 24, 2008

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has disbanded the political wing of the military intelligence agency, the foreign minister said Sunday.

The cooperation of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, directorate is regarded as vital to the West in fighting the threat of Al Qaeda globally and defeating the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

But critics call it a “state within a state.” Pakistan’s eight-month-old civilian government has regularly accused the ISI’s political wing of involvement in the overthrow of their governments. Neighboring Afghanistan and India view the ISI with great distrust.

C.I.A. outlines PAKISTAN LINKS with Militants

NEW YORK TIMES

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July 30, 2008

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.

The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.

The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.