Taliban are Pakistan ISI backed terrorists, says ex Afghan intelligence head

Even as the United States has appointed a special envoy for Afghanistan to negotiate and broker peace between the Taliban and the Afghan government, former head of Afghan intelligence Amrullah Saleh on Wednesday called the entire policy of "flawed" and said that Afghanistan has not done enough to increase the "cost of war" for Pakistan.

Asked to elaborate what he meant by the cost of war, the former chief of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security said, "There is no Afghan dossier on Pakistan in the UN Security Council. We have not presented to the United Nations with a state stamped dossier declaring Pakistan our enemy. We have always tried to leave a few bridges intact and that policy of half-heartedness has not helped us."

Questioning the entire exercise of engaging the Taliban, Saleh said that unless Pakistan stops supporting these terrorists, there can be no solution in Afghanistan.

Criticising the role of the US and its envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in not seeing the real picture he said, "All the five Taliban representatives who the US envoy met in Doha had flown in from Pakistan which means that they are backed by the Pakistani state."

India Today has learnt that US officials met with Taliban members Mullah Shahabuddin Dilawar, Qari Din Mohammad Hanif, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, Dr Mohammad Naeem Wardak and Abdul Salam Hanafi in Doha.

An Afghan official said, "They had been travelling to Doha initially on Pakistani passports but later when the negotiations picked up traction they were issued Afghan passports under Ghani government, not during Karzai time."

Saleh also accused Pakistan of sheltering terrorists and cited the examples of Mullah Mansoor, Osama bin Laden, Haqqanis, Mullah Omar, Taliban's Quetta shura, as having had taken shelter in Pakistan.

The former Afghan intelligence chief also said that they don't need to "outsource" their peace efforts to any third country. The US envoy might be of Afghan origin but he does not have the right to "circumvent" a process that has to be "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned".

Talking about a peace conference on Afghanistan that was scheduled to take place in Moscow recently, Saleh said had it gone forward, it would have given recognition to two states in Afghanistan -- an Islamic state ruled by President Ghani and an Islamic Emirate led by Taliban.

He also hailed India over its stand on the conference, saying the country took a very principled position to say that it will attend only if Kabul agrees.

"India did the right thing by not joining talks with the Taliban and I hope it stays that way. Pakistan supports these terrorists as it does those that attack India," he said.

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