CITIZEN-TIMES.

com

Intelligence agency of our 'ally' Pakistan is really a funding source for

terrorism

By Jason Lauritzen
July 18, 2005 6:00 am

“Today, because we’re working with the Pakistani leaders, Pakistan is an ally in the war on
terror, and the American people are safer.” — President Bush, July 12, 2004.

Of all the allies the United States has in the war on terror, Pakistan is the least appropriate one.
The biggest problem with Pakistan arises out of its state security service, the Inter-Services
Intelligence agency (ISI).

The ISI has been described as a “state within a state” that answers to no one. A former U.S.
intelligence officer said, “The ISI is an inner circle of an inner circle of an inner circle.”

In order to understand how the ISI functions, it is necessary to go back to Afghanistan in the
1980s when the Afghan freedom fighters (Mujahedeen) were fighting against Soviet intervention
in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to join the resistance.

In 1984, with the help of the ISI, bin Laden established a front organization known as Maktab al-
Khidamar (MAK), which brought in money, arms and fighters from the outside world to
Afghanistan. The CIA relied on the ISI as a primary conduit for conducting a covert war against
the Soviets.

Soviet troops started to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1988. While the arms and Mujahideen
brought in by the CIA and ISI wore down the Soviet troops, historians commonly miss one
element: heroin.

In the 1980s the CIA and ISI insisted a cell be established to use heroin for covert actions. The
cell promoted the cultivation of opium and the extraction of heroin in Pakistan and parts of
Afghanistan under Mujahedeen control. The goal was to get the Soviet troops addicted. It also
presented a big pay off to the ISI and bin Laden: by forcing Afghan warlords to pay a tax on the
opium trade, the ISI and bin Laden were splitting annual profits of $100 million a year.

After the Soviets left Afghanistan the ISI’s heroin cell used its network of refineries and
smugglers to send heroin to the West. In fact, the cell generated so much money from the sale of
heroin that the Hindu Business Line revealed: “Pakistan’s illegal heroin economy has kept its
legitimate economy sustained since 1990 and prevented its collapse.”

The ISI then used its resources to create the Taliban. Using connections they had with al-Qaida,
the ISI made sure the Taliban achieved a swift victory and installed a fundamentalist government
friendly to Pakistan and problematic for their rival, India. Our ally, Pakistan, installed the
government the U.S. overthrew and is still fighting in Afghanistan.

Through their support of MAK, bin Laden, the Taliban and al-Qaida, it becomes apparent that
the ISI is not an average state intelligence agency. Author Frederick Forsyth succinctly described
the nature of the ISI in the Wall Street Journal: “Despite their clean chins and pressed uniforms,
the ISI men are as deeply fundamentalist as any bearded fanatic.”

The ISI was sloppy in covering its terrorist ties in the 1980s and 1990s and continues to be so to
this day. In fact, the ISI can be tied to funding part of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The link starts
on Dec. 24, 1999.

On that date five Pakistani nationals hijacked an airliner with 180 passengers traveling from
Kathmandu, Nepal, to New Delhi, India, using knives. They slashed the throat of a passenger and
forced the pilot to open the cockpit door. The plane landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where the
terrorists negotiated with authorities.

The passengers were released in exchange for three terrorists India was holding: Mohammad
Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Sayed Sheikh. It was later revealed
that the hijacking was an operation executed by the ISI.

Sheikh is very important. Two years later he was revealed to be one of bin Laden’s moneymen
behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Several Indian newspapers confirmed with the FBI that ISI Director
General Mahmud Ahmed ordered Sheikh to wire $100,000 to Mohammad Atta, one of the Sept.
11 hijackers. The publication of this link led to General Mahmud stepping down from his
position.

What is even more disturbing about this link is that on the morning of Sept. 11, chairmen of the
House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Sen. Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss (now head
of the CIA) discussed bin Laden, terrorism and Afghanistan with none other than Mahmud.

So, does Pakistan sound like a suitable ally if you are fighting a war against terrorism?
Obviously, no, and the lack of concern from the Bush administration about a foreign intelligence
agency directly funding and training terrorists, is disturbing.

Jason Lauritzen has a minor in political science at Appalachian State University. He lives in
Brevard and is currently doing a summer internship for the AC-T.

* "The Weakest link: Why the world needs Pakistan's dictator to

survive, and how to rescue him" -

http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=1154447

* "One problem is that his levers of power are loose. The militant
groups have, since General Zia's time in the 1980s, been trained,

armed and run by Pakistan's military, in the shape of the

Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). The ISI has always been

something of a law unto itself: one former foreign minister says the

civilian government of his time was never entirely aware of what it

was up to."

* "Bin Laden comes home to roost" - http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp

* " As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi

Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion

in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab

al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from

the outside world into the Afghan war.

What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its

unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by

Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence

agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert

war against Moscow's occupation."

* "In Pakistan, a grand illusion?" -

http://www.msnbc.com/news/636796.asp?cp1=1#BODY

* "That CIA-backed effort flooded Pakistan with weapons and zealous

Afghan and Arab fighters. When the Soviet Union left the region in

1989, the CIA pulled out, too. But the zealots remained, and
Pakistan's own intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence bureau

or ISI, took over as their sponsors. They helped put the Taliban in

power and trained militants fighting to end India's rule in Kashmir."

* "Pakistan's secretive intelligence agency, known as the ISI, has

been described as a "state within a state," answering to no one,

including military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The ISI has channeled

money and weapons to the Taliban for years, seeking to create a

government friendly toward Pakistan – and a headache for rival India.

U.S. intelligence agencies fear factions within it may be aligned with

Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida, an alleged terrorist network."

* " A former U.S. intelligence officer based in the region agreed.

"The ISI is an inner circle of an inner circle of an inner circle," he

said on condition of anonymity. "You can't get rid of these people,

because they're all related by family ties and marriage."

* "Analysis: It ain't over till it's over" -

http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CK15Dh01.html

* "That, however, is what's continuing to happen and could still

derail decisive Taliban defeat. Noted author Frederick Forsyth in a

November 13 piece in The Wall Street Journal Europe defines one of the

key issues that won't go away:

"... the worst mistake of all [on the part of the US]," he writes,

"was to swallow hook, line and sinker the advice of the Pakistani
Inter-Services Intelligence outfit. Despite their clean chins and

pressed uniforms, the ISI men are as deeply fundamentalist as any

bearded fanatic; the ISI created the Taliban as their own instrument

and still supports it."

* "Heroin, Taliban and Pakistan" -

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/businessline/2001/08/10/stories/041055ju.htm

* "The use of the heroin dollars for such purposes started after the

withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1988. In the

1980s, at the instance of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the

Internal Political Division of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),

headed by Brig (retd). Imtiaz, who worked directly under Lt Gen Hamid

Gul – who was Director-General, ISI, during the later years of

Zia-ul-Haq and the first few months of Ms Benazir Bhutto's first

tenure as the Prime Minister (1988-90) – started a cell for the use

of heroin for covert actions."

* "This cell promoted the cultivation of opium and the extraction of

heroin in Pakistan as well as in those parts of Afghanistan under

Mujahideen control for being smuggled into the Soviet-controlled areas

to get the Soviet troops addicted. After the withdrawal of the Soviet

troops, the ISI's heroin cell started using its network of refineries

and smugglers to send heroin to the West and use the money to

supplement its legitimate economy."

* "PAKISTAN'S illegal heroin economy has kept its legitimate economy

sustained since 1990 and prevented its collapse. It has also enabled

it maintain a high level of arms purchases from abroad, and finance

its proxy war against India through the jehadi organisations."

* "President Bush discusses progress in the War on Terror" -

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/07/20040712-5.html

* "Today, because we're working with the Pakistani leaders, Pakistan

is an ally in the war on terror, and the American people are safer."

(Applause.)

* Info on Flight 814 hiacking -

http://www.indianembassy.org/archive/IC_814.htm#The%20Chronology%20of%20Events

* The ISI created the Taliban - http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9610/05/taleban/