New Delhi
15 August 2007
A collection of newly-declassified documents of the United States
Government has revealed that the Taliban was directly funded, armed and advised by
Pakistan. The documents also link Harkat ul-Ansar, a terrorist group funded directly by
the Government of Pakistan, to terrorist training camps shared by Osama bin Laden in
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
The documents conclude that there has been an extensive and consistent history of both
military and financial assistance to the Taliban by Islamabad before and after the
Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996.
A relevant paragraph from the documents confirms the sentiments of the Indian security
establishment. It reads: "Consistent reporting indicates Pakistan provides both military
and financial assistance to the Taliban. Pakistan's primary goals are to achieve strategic
depth with regard to India, and securing access to Central Asian trade routes. Cultural
ties also exist between the Taliban leadership and Pakistan, where several Taliban
leaders lived for many years".
The declassified US documents were published on Tuesday by the National Security
Archive at George Washington University. The publication of the documents comes just
days after Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf admitted that the Taliban were
being sheltered in the lawless frontier border regions. Assistant US Secretary of State for
South Asia and Central Asia Richard Boucher is currently on a two-day visit to Islamabd.
On Wednesday he met with Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri.
The documents dwell at some length on the unsettling triangle between Harkat ul-Ansar,
Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. The Harkat ul-Ansar's threat of hijacking an airliner,
based on information generated in August 1996, finds particular mention. "HUA contacts
of Embassy New Delhi have hinted that they might undertake terrorist actions against
civilian airliners," the documents suggest. The CIA describes the Harkat ul-Ansar "as
Islamic extremist organisation that Pakistan supports in its proxy war against Indian
forces in Kashmir." The declassified US Department of State cables and US intelligence
reports go on to describe the use of Taliban terrorist training areas in Afghanistan by
Pakistani-supported militants in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the use of Pakistani
troops to train and fight alongside the Taliban inside Afghanistan.
According to the documents, the US learnt about Pakistan's intelligence agency's hand in
reaching food supplies from Pakistan to the Taliban in October 1996. The munitions
convoys, in turn, departed Pakistan late in the evening hours and were concealed to
reveal their true contents. In November that year, Pakistan's Pashtun-based Frontier
Corps elements were used alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. The reports cite a
November 7, 1996 Intelligence Information Report about how Pakistan's ISI is heavily
involved in Afghanistan and details the different roles various ISI officers played in
Afghanistan.
In March 1998, it became known that the Al-Qaeda and the "Pakistan Government-
funded" Harkat ul-Ansar have been sharing terrorist training camps in Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan. By September 2000, Pakistan's aid to the Taliban had reached
"unprecedented" levels. Islamabad had possibly allowed the Taliban to use territory in
Pakistan for military operations and was providing the Taliban with material, fuel,
funding, technical assistance and military advisers.
The documents support the findings of a recently-released CIA Intelligence Estimate that
Pakistan's tribal areas were a safe haven for Al-Qaeda terrorists. They detail US concern
over Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban during the seven-year-period leading up to
the September 11, 2001 World Trade Centre attacks in New York and also provide new
details about the close relationship between Islamabad and the Taliban in the years
prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan.
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