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ISI not supporting Pak based Taliban commanders against NATO forces: Musharraf | Former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has rejected reports that the Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) was lending covert support to the top Taliban commanders based in Pakistan
and providing them logistical help to continue fighting against the US led allied
forces in Afghanistan. Musharraf also denied that the ISI was still helping the
Taliban in order to hedge against a U.S. withdrawal from and oppose Indian interests
in Afghanistan. "I don't think that is correct at all. The ISI behaves as they
are ordered by the government. They never go against government policy," The Washington
Times quoted Musharraf, as saying. "If our attitude is that the (Pakistani) army
and ISI are the culprits, God save all of us," he added. Musharraf, however, defended
Islamabad's support to the Taliban during the Soviet Union's incursion into Afghanistan,
saying it had no other option then. "Pakistan had no other option after the defeat
of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan but to recognize the Taliban because a rival
movement, the Northern Alliance, was supported by India and other opponents of
Pakistan," the former general said. "Is it in our interest to be on the Taliban
side now? No," said Musharraf. Musharraf also denied reports that nuclear scientist
Abdul Qadeer Khan sold nuke know how's to Iran, North Korea and Libya with the
knowledge of the Pakistani government. "It is absolutely wrong to think that the
Pakistan government was involved in proliferation. It was done by himself as an
individual who proliferated," he said. It may be noted that Khan, in his letter
to a British journalist, Simon Henderson, claimed that he was made a 'scapegoat'
in the nuclear proliferation issue. Khan said the then Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto's defence advisor had asked him to provide nuclear details to Iran. "Probably
with the blessings of BB (Benazir Bhutto) General Imtiaz (Benazir's defence adviser)
asked... me to give a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians...The
names and addresses of suppliers were also given to the Iranians," Qadeer said
in his letter. |
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