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Mi5 warns pakistan creating alqaeda plots { November 16 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2455130,00.htmlhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2455130,00.html
November 16, 2006
Why spies are in the spotlight over a 'double game'
From Zahid Hussain in Islamabad
ACCUSED of turning a blind eye to Taleban fighters and of links with the extremists blamed for July’s Bombay train bombings, Pakistan’s intelligence services have come under new scrutiny.
Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, has given warning that al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan are behind plots to launch fresh terrorist attacks in Britain.
Pakistani intelligence officials say they have helped to thwart several conspiracies involving British Muslim radicals with links in Pakistan, and that some alleged terrorists now facing trial in Britain were held on information provided by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). But although it co-operates closely with MI5 and MI6 and with the CIA, the ISI remains vulnerable to allegations that it is playing a double game in the war on terror.
Indian police have claimed that the Bombay bombing was planned by elements in the ISI and carried out by the Pakistani based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The allegation was rejected by Islamabad as baseless. More recently the ISI has been accused in a leaked document from Britain’s Ministry of Defence of providing tacit support for Taleban insurgents using Pakistani border regions as a base for attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan. President Musharraf has rejected the allegation, but conceded that some “rogue” retired ISI operatives supported the Taleban. The allegations arise because for more than two decades, until the 9/11 attacks, the ISI was a sponsor of Islamic militancy. In Afghanistan as well as Kashmir, the ISI discovered the effectiveness of covert warfare to bleed a stronger adversary while maintaining plausible deniability.
Almost all ISI officers are regular military personnel who, under state patronage, formed an alliance with the mullahs that resulted in the rise of radical Islam.
So when Pakistan changed its course after September 11, it also brought about a reversal in the ISI’s role. The ISI was forced back together with the CIA for a new war. The agency was now required to undo the politics of militancy, which it had actively promoted for almost a quarter of a century.
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