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Subscribe to RSSPakistan’s security services are directly assisting the Taliban in Afghanistan and know where senior militant leaders are hiding, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
The British news service cited a leaked secret NATO report compiled from thousands of interrogations.
According to the report, the Taliban remain defiant in the midst of allied bombardment and also still maintain wide support among Afghans.
Taliban talks: Another Karzai tiff with the US?
The BBC story comes after a series of reports that the United States, NATO and the Afghan government plan talks with the Taliban in an effort to end the 10-year war in Afghanistan. It also comes amid tensions between the United States and Pakistan.
Qais Usyan / AFP - Getty Images
More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.
Defense Secretary Panetta told CBS’ "60 Minutes" on Sunday that he remains convinced that someone in the Pakistani government must have had an idea that a person of interest was in the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed. In the interview, Panetta acknowledged a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, provided information to the United States that helped identify the al-Qaida leader. After the raid, Pakistan arrested Afridi and has accused him of treason.
And last November, Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan after a NATO raid killed 28 Pakistani troops at a remote outpost. The Pakistani government also ordered a U.S. drone base closed.
According to the BBC's correspondent in Kabul, Quentin Sommerville, the leaked report for the first time exposes ties between the Pakistani intelligence service, known as ISI, and the Taliban.
Though alleged in the past, Pakistan has denied any direct links with the Taliban.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen alluded to ISI ties to militants fighting in Afghanistan during testimony in September 2011, according to NBC.
Pakistan has closed crucial roads used to ferry supplies to U.S and NATO troops in Afghanistan-- leaving Pakistani drivers stranded and driving up the U.S. price tag for the war. NBC's Amna Nawaz reports from Peshawar.
He called the Haqqani Network, a close ally of the Taliban, the "veritable arm” of the ISI, and said that the ISI is using other “proxies” to attack in Afghanistan.
NATO spokesman Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings told the BBC that the report was a “classified internal document not meant to be released to the public.”
According to the BBC, the report, based on 27,000 interrogations with captured Taliban, al-Qaida and other fighters, states: "As this document is derived directly from insurgents it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical."
The Afghan government says President Hamid Karzai will hold talks with the Taliban in the hopes of starting a peace process. NBC's Atia Abawi reports from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Msnbc.com staff and NBC News' Courtney Kube contributed to this report.
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Really? Not what was your first clue. When was your first clue? Today? Yesterday? Last week? Last Month? Last year?
These Pakistani Pigs have been playing us the whole time and you are now just figuring it out?
What gets me is that we were in bed with them and the whole time Pakistan was in bed with them too......and we just let it happen.
Pakistan = Pig S()t
The end of the Taliban will come when the US and Nato leave Pakistan and Afghanistan to the mercy of the hungry industrial machine called China. At some point, the Religious Nuts will offend the Chinese and they will disappear without a trace. China does this well.
News flash: (one you won't see on Fox News) Afghanistan was invaded years ago by Russia, they went in there and kicked ass, guess who helped the Afghans kick out the Russia's???
Right Wing Conservative American's who hated Russia... Conservatives caused this problem and trained Osama Bin Laden and all the terrorists yeas ago, we should have just let Russia kick ass.
But here is the punch line: later on in time, a Democratic, Liberal President kills Osama Bin Laden and he somehow gets accused by conservatives of being UN-American :)
If this wasn't actually happening I wouldn't believe it.
The only major difference between Indians and Pakistanians is the Pakistanians are muslim. I wonder why we have so many issues with them since they are of the religion of peace.
Still think there is not a holy war being fought?
Eliminate ISI and pakistani army. Make pakistan a secular state. We need real fire power and guts to attain that goal.
We left Iraq when we did because W signed a treaty calling for us to be out by then. Iraq was Ok with us staying there if our soldiers would be tried in Iraqi courts when they committed crimes against Iraqis. If we had finished what we started in Afghanistan before attacking Iraq, our troops could have been out of there years ago. If we hadn't been giving Pakistan insane amounts of money, they would have openly worked against us. You can't buy friends. Stop trying.
We were buying enemies dumb ass. Why are all you people so stupid you don't see the big picture of world politics going on here, you keep your friends close, enemies closer.
Will all you ignorant racist conservative Nazi's please go back to listening to your angry white man radio shows and leave the world politics to the guy who found and killed Osama Bin Laden while you were debating if his birth certificate was real or not.
Not true at all. The Pact signed required the State Dept (aka Hillary Clinton) to negotiate a new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). HRC and HBO had 3 years to do this. Instead BHO and HRC decided to wait until the last moment and then begin (insincere) negotiations. To make sure a new SOFA would fail, BHO wanted to leave 4,000 (sitting ducks) in Iraq.
I'm glad we are out of Iraq however, the flag handed back to the Iraqi's was really handed over to Iran.
In related news: No @!$%#.
We know that the ISI aids, funds, and shelters Taliban militants. We know that the Pakistani army does absolutely nothing to pursue the Taliban in the northwest of their country. We have known this for years. So why do we not act on this knowledge? It's not even as if there could be some conspiritorial, ulterior motive for not addressing the full extent of the problem. All we're doing is wasting money and resources, which benefits no one. I don't understand why we do this.
We were buying enemies dumb ass. Why are all you people so stupid you don't see the big picture of world politics going on here, you keep your friends close, enemies closer.
Will all you ignorant racist conservative Nazi's please go back to listening to your angry white man radio shows and leave the world politics to the guy who found and killed Osama Bin Laden while you were debating if his birth certificate was real or not.
lol wtf,who cares about this stupid ass @!$%#,wtf is iran gonna do and wtf is pakistan gonna do really,these @!$%#en places are third world countrys,i mean @!$%# they live in huts of rock and @!$%#,no one in the states really gives a @!$%# about bbc,yet about these @!$%#en places,i'm sick of seeing @!$%# like this everyday i look at msn, about this war fake @!$%# we don't care about simply we dont give a flying @!$%# about this,why don't you cover something like,how all these @!$%#s in congress take our money then @!$%# on us,pretty sad when 99percent of people voted on the msn poll to vote out all congress,cause people hate them and can care less of this stupid @!$%#.
We are continually reminded of our stupidity as we try to appease nations who stab us in the back literally and figuratively. Can we commit to leaving Afghanistan quickly and then completely STOP providing Pakistan any financial support. Let's work on supporting our troops, country, and economy now. Pakistan's neighbor to the southeast (India) will provide plenty of leverage to keep them where they need to be....in their own self absorbed corrupt government. Let's just see how things pan out without the US there to buy their support. Protect our borders vigilantly and provide strong arm tactics with those who abhor democracy yet not self impose our will on them. We are in the midst of a global revolution against autocratic tyrannical governments. The fire is stoked and the people are rising up against social/moral injustices. The next couple of years should be very interesting!
What else is new? We back the rebel in a country because he seems less dangerous than the guy he threw out, only to find out he was lying to us to get the weapons and $$$ he needed to take over and that he is in fact worse than the previous dictator. No wonder the world hates us. In my experience, most of the diplomats on the ground are pretty good, they just get the wool pulled over their eyes! They are often told what they want to hear and what the country wants to tell them an rarely do they ever get the real picture right.
As a result, good ole Uncle Sam makes bad choices with the bad information they get from their "contacts". We get taken advantage of overseas so bad it isn't funny, mainly because we do not make sincere overtures, we play at diplomacy. Our Ambassadors do not usually speak the language of the country they are sent to, nor do many of the embassy staff. So we hire in-country translators who tell us what they are told to tell us, etc. etc, etc.
Crap, been there, seen it, done that, got the tee shirt. The only Americans who have a better understanding of what is going on in the country is usually the Peace Corp types, and the missionaries...they see and listen to the people. They usually have a better feel for what's going on.
You CAN'T bomb them back into the Dark Ages. They're already there and they aren't ever going to emerge. Let them rot! And when we see a training camp develop, send cruise missles and a Hallmark Card.
Well...duhh! It does not require a rocket scientist to understand Pakistan has been and always will be in the back pocket of the Taliban. Let's cut their foreign aid in half from 10 billion dollars down to 5 billion. That will fix them!
Or, better yet, skip the carpet bombing suggested by another savvy reader. Let's just nuk them. We could level the entire county in a matter of minutes before they could ever respond.
Only in america................................to have "secret information" that is common knowledge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Hey state dept............if ya have to buy friends, aren't they really your enemy?
And the question is still asked 9 years after the idiot Bush invaded Iraq. At least Obama is going after the REAL enemy this time.
Nuke them. Stop pussying around with these backwater hellholes.
I AGREE!! And if Iran wants nukes, I say we oblige and drop about 1000 a day for 100 days then bury them all with a pork chop in their mouth while wrapped in a pig skin under a dung heap!
The Pakistanis having a connection with terrorism,is not suprisin,they have been feeding intel to Al-Qaeda for years, preventing us from finding and killing Bin Laden in the years before 2001. The Pakistanis danced and celebrated in the streets while New York burned in 2001, the United States can find better allies then a hateful, backwards little country no better then the Taliban regime we overthrew in Afghanistan.
Lay waste to that whole nest of terrorists in Pukistan & Afgagistan & use it as an example for Iran. If you kill them all they can't make a comeback!
Good job UK! The entire world knows that the ISI is behind many terrorists organizations. To name some of them: Jamaat al_Dawat; Punjab-based jihadi groups: Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT); Hizbul-Mujahedin and Hizb-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami, Ghazi Force, Sirajuddin Haqqani network; Jundallah which is against Iran),Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-IslamiGhazi Force - majority are Sunni - Sufis, whose mystical practices clash with their hardline interpretations of Islam. Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen., etc. Want other (ISI) examples? - Look up some of the biggest attacks on Kashmir and India.
Of course the Obama Administration continues to not want to acknowledge this. Which leads to the question of why BHO is so hell bent of pacifying known terrorist organizations.
BTW - There is a big difference between Iran and Pakistan. Pakistan (spelled schizophrenic-stan) is slowly disintegrating from within. Whereas Iran declared war on the US and the West in 1979.
Iran has plans of attacking USA's mainland. They are hot, we won't allow them to close the Strait.
LOL!!
Yeah... 10 years ago we were told that Iraq had plans to attack the US mainland...
You kids are a hoot !!!
Pakistan is likely to cause the death of the human race because nuclear terrorism will result in a nuclear war. Then again humans are probably going to go extinct anyway. Evolution required that humans have a nastiness to survive. Religion only transposes the nastiness into another form. Joseph Stalin or the 30 Years Wars, take your pick. People are as mean with or without religion. My theory is that every sentient life form must be mean as part of the price of survival. When nuclear weapons become available sentient life never lasts long enough to colonize space. Why else would planets seem to be everywhere but the sky is empty of any radio signals from intelligent life? If not Pakistan then Iran. If not Iran then North Korea.
Have a nice day.
People don't like how Pakistan does shady things behind N.A.T.O.'s back and are dumbfounded by the question of, "why do we let them do this?" The simple fact is that its the number one hotspot for WW3 to occur do to a distrust between India and Pakistan; and an old border dispute. N.A.T.O. is more secure and can maintain order a lot better with an in-coherent bastard cousin than no one at their side at all. That's not my opinion but the thought of a rouge Pakistan state with all those old nukes. scary.
Pakistan is playing the typical "Coward's" role....
Support both sides and maybe when one wins they will be kind to you...
Folks....please read a little history....it never works. If you believed in what Christ said (of course you dont) you'd understand that man cannot serve two masters.....so, who do you really despise?
Please remember that the word Hillbilly refers to people living in America. Do not use it to describe those people. I live in Kentucky and am in no way whatsoever like a Pakistani. These people have been in war for hundreds of years and will remain in war for many more. They must change the way they live.
The British Broadcasting Corporation has to wake the dumb US up because American taxpayers, otherwise known as suckers, keep paying for aid to Pakistan and then that very same American aid gets passed on to the Taliban and al-qaida in order to attack the US.
America has only two (democratic) friends in that region that can be trusted - Israel and India.
These people speak with forked tongue. They do not want us, or our help..I think we should get all our men out from the Middle East, and if they want to fight among themselves, so be it. We have spent enough of tax payers money over there. The American people is tired of our money being wasted. America has enough on her plate, and should take care of our own business and stop putting our noses into the business of other countries. WE ARE NOT THE WORLD'S POLICE.... I repeat.. WE ARE NOT THE WORLD'S POLICE....
Time to admit defeat and pull out before more lives are lost.
Carpet bomb Pakistan? HELLO! there is innocent people living here.....who am i kidding! what does it matter to you animals anyways: i guess nobody remembers their own attrocities, the way you so called civilized people sprung to so called liberal heights, the mass slavery of African people, the innumerable deaths caused by the your chauvanistic democracy, and the pretense nation building....bigots. all of you.
good job painting your ignorant picture of America like the rest of the fundamentalist out there, as well as here in America. your statement might not be as ignorant as the Americans saying carpet-bomb Pakistan, but hey we're all guilty in America and Pakistan, right? we in this world are all the same;animals you called us, right? you dolt.