Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say

[Mediaman]

New York Times

August 1, 2008
Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded that
members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July
7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to
United States government officials.
The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between
Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the
attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date
that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American
efforts to combat militants in the region.
The American officials also said there was new information showing
that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly
providing militants with details about the American campaign against
them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile
strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Concerns about the role played by Pakistani intelligence not only has
strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, a longtime
ally, but also has fanned tensions between Pakistan and its archrival,
India. Within days of the bombings, Indian officials accused the
Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of helping to
orchestrate the attack in Kabul, which killed 54, including an Indian
defense attaché.
This week, Pakistani troops clashed with Indian forces in the
contested region of Kashmir, threatening to fray an uneasy cease-fire
that has held since November 2003.
The New York Times reported this week that a top Central Intelligence
Agency official traveled to Pakistan this month to confront senior
Pakistani officials with information about support provided by members
of the ISI to militant groups. It had not been known that American
intelligence agencies concluded that elements of Pakistani
intelligence provided direct support for the attack in Kabul.
American officials said that the communications were intercepted
before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R.
Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad,
Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack. The intercepts were not
detailed enough to warn of any specific attack.
The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence
and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI
officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers
had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been
authorized by superiors.
“It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held,” one
State Department official with knowledge of Afghanistan issues said of
the intercepted communications. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment.
There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.”
The information linking the ISI to the bombing of the Indian Embassy
was described in interviews by several American officials with
knowledge of the intelligence. Some of the officials expressed anger
that elements of Pakistan’s government seemed to be directly aiding
violence in Afghanistan that had included attacks on American troops.
Some American officials have begun to suggest that Pakistan is no
longer a fully reliable American partner and to advocate some
unilateral American action against militants based in the tribal
areas.
The ISI has long maintained ties to militant groups in the tribal
areas, in part to court allies it can use to contain Afghanistan’s
power. In recent years, Pakistan’s government has also been concerned
about India’s growing influence inside Afghanistan, including New
Delhi’s close ties to the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan
president.
American officials say they believe that the embassy attack was
probably carried out by members of a network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin
Haqqani, whose alliance with Al Qaeda and its affiliates has allowed
the terrorist network to rebuild in the tribal areas.
American and Pakistani officials have now acknowledged that President
Bush on Monday confronted Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza
Gilani, about the divided loyalties of the ISI.
Pakistan’s defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told a Pakistani
television network on Wednesday that Mr. Bush asked senior Pakistani
officials this week, “ ‘Who is in control of ISI?’ ” and asked about
leaked information that tipped militants to surveillance efforts by
Western intelligence services.
Pakistan’s new civilian government is wrestling with these very
issues, and there is concern in Washington that the civilian leaders
will be unable to end a longstanding relationship between members of
the ISI and militants associated with Al Qaeda.
Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment for
this article. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain
Haqqani, did not return a call seeking comment.
Further underscoring the tension between Pakistan and its Western
allies, Britain’s senior military officer said in Washington on
Thursday that an American and British program to help train Pakistan’s
Frontier Corps in the tribal areas had been delayed while Pakistan’s
military and civilian officials sorted out details about the program’s
goals.
Britain and the United States had each offered to send about two dozen
military trainers to Pakistan later this summer to train Pakistani
Army officers who in turn would instruct the Frontier Corps
paramilitary forces.
But the British officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said the
program had been temporarily delayed. “We don’t yet have a firm start
date,” he told a small group of reporters. “We’re ready to go.”
The bombing of the Indian Embassy helped to set off a new
deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan.
This week, Indian and Pakistani soldiers fired at each other across
the Kashmir frontier for more than 12 hours overnight Monday, in what
the Indian Army called the most serious violation of a five-year-old
cease-fire agreement. The nightlong battle came after one Indian
soldier and four Pakistanis were killed along the border between
sections of Kashmir that are controlled by India and by Pakistan.
Indian officials say they are equally worried about what is happening
on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border because they say the insurgents who
are facing off with India in Kashmir and those who target Afghanistan
are related and can keep both borders burning at the same time.
India and Afghanistan share close political, cultural and economic
ties, and India maintains an active intelligence network in
Afghanistan, all of which has drawn suspicion from Pakistani
officials.
When asked Thursday about whether the ISI and Pakistani military
remained loyal to the country’s civilian government, Adm. Mike Mullen,
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sidestepped the question.
“That’s probably something the government of Pakistan ought to speak
to,” Admiral Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon.
Jalaluddin Haqqani, the militia commander, battled Soviet troops
during the 1980s and has had a long and complicated relationship with
the C.I.A. He was among a group of fighters who received arms and
millions of dollars from the C.I.A. during that period, but his
allegiance with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda during the following
decade led the United States to sever the relationship.
Mr. Haqqani and his sons now run a network that Western intelligence
services say they believe is responsible for a campaign of violence
throughout Afghanistan, including the Indian Embassy bombing and an
attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul earlier this year.
David Rohde contributed reporting from New York, and Somini Sengupta
from New Delhi.