Posted on 11/15/2002 10:05:34 PM PST by TheConservator
Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, publicly allied with the United States in the fight against terrorism, is trying to broker an alliance between leaders of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime and a fugitive warlord who is on the United States' most wanted list, a former Taliban official has said.
Meeting in secret on Friday in the dust-clogged streets of Peshawar, he said Pakistan's intelligence service has been acting as a go-between with the remnants of the Afghan religious regime and supporters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a key rebel leader who was based in Iran and is now sought by US forces.
"Already the mujahedeen (fighters) of Hekmatyar and of the Taliban are together, but some of the leaders still have differences," the official said.
The official, who is in hiding and spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Pakistan's InterServices Intelligence (ISI) agency has also been meeting with the former Taliban governor of eastern Nangarhar province, Maulvi Abdul Kabir, believed to be the Taliban's third highest-ranking member.
"Kabir is very close to the ISI," he said.
But the ISI dismissed allegations that it was trying to broker any agreement, saying its loyalties to the government of President Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf has been trying to strike a balance between his cooperation in the US-led war on terrorism and his efforts to appease the growing power of fundamentalist Islamic factions.
"The FBI and CIA have been working closely with the ISI," said an agency official, who refused to be quoted by name. "Ask them how much we have cooperated with them. They know that we are genuinely helping them to eliminate terrorism."
The InterServices Intelligence agency was a strong supporter of the Taliban until the September 11 terror attacks, at which point Musharraf decided to switch gears and back the United States' war on terror.
Despite the policy change, many ISI officials are believed to remain sympathetic to the former Afghan regime. Whether or not the ISI is involved, Hekmatyar and the Taliban apparently have been in touch.
Western intelligence says Hekmatyar has met former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who is being hunted by the United States and believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.
The two men agree on the goal of attacking US soldiers in Afghanistan and of destabilizing the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, but are divided over methods, intelligence officials say.
The claim about Pakistan's intelligence service could not have come at a worse time for Musharraf, who also is dealing with the purported audiotape of Osama bin Laden that surfaced this week and which US officials are treating as authentic.
Musharraf has repeatedly speculated bin Laden is dead, and the tape is sure to put pressure on him to more aggressively scour Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, where many Al-Qaeda and Taliban officials are believed to have fled.
Despite the presence in the border region of thousands of Pakistani military and US intelligence officials, Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters move with relative ease. The porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan stretches more than 1,600 kilometers and is impossible to seal.
Musharraf, who has been trying to please Washington without alienating his own citizens, is also dealing with his country's newly powerful religious right, which won control of the North West Frontier in October 10 elections and has deep sympathies with the Taliban.
Within the six-party religious alliance that came in third in the national elections are parties with clear and open sympathies with the Taliban and others with links to Hekmatyar, who has called for a holy war against the United States.
The dominant party in that alliance, Jamaat-e-Islami, was a strong ally of Hekmatyar's throughout the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and during the Afghan civil war between 1992 and 1996. Jamaat-e-Islami leader Qasi Hussain Ahmed, the coalition's parliamentary leader, was once a spokesman for Hekmatyar.
Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami force was one of the US-aided guerrilla armies that fought Soviet invaders in the 1980s. Then he served as Afghan prime minister, but he fled to Iran in 1996 after his group was defeated by the Taliban.
Now, his forces have forged an alliance with Taliban fugitives and claim to be receiving arms and money from Al-Qaeda and Iran for planned suicide attacks on US forces in Afghanistan. Sami-ul Haq, leader of Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam, another member of the religious alliance, runs one of Pakistan's biggest Islamic schools where many of the top Taliban leadership studied.
In addition to the mainstream religious parties, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are getting support in Pakistan from terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harakat-ul Mujahedeen and Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, which are fighting in Jammu and Kashmir, India.
"They are together in their hate for the United States," said Anwar Sher, a retired Pakistani general.
The former top Taliban official said that Hezb-ul Mujahedeen and Al Badr Mujahedeen are big supporters of Hekmatyar, while Lashkar-e-Tayyaba have links to Al-Qaeda and Harakat-ul Mujahedeen and Jaish-e-Mohammed have ties to the Taliban.
Western intelligence agencies fear Al-Qaeda is regrouping in Pakistan. The two top Al-Qaeda operatives in captivity were both arrested in Pakistan.
Some European intelligence agencies say the flow of Arab militants to Pakistan, which came to a standstill after September 11, appears to have resumed.
On Friday, Afghan Defence Minister Mohammed Fahim said he suspected bin Laden was hiding along the border.
"Osama is alive," Fahim said in a broadcast on Afghan Television. "He is living in the mountains along the Afghan and Pakistan border. We will find evidence and document it."
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