Pakistan’s ISI has influence over every terrorist group and it uses these contacts for its “own advantage”, former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has said in a rare admission that corroborates India’s suspicions of Pak-hand in terror acts.
Debunking Pakistan’s oft-repeated position that its Inter-Services Intelligence had no role in terror activities across the border, General (retired) Musharraf claimed that its intelligence agency’s effectiveness was through such “ingress”.
“Always, in every group, there is an ingress of the ISI. And that is the efficiency, the effectiveness of the ISI. You must have ingress, so that you can influence all organisations. And it is this ingress of theirs, which doesn’t mean that they are supporting them, but they have ingress. They have some contacts, which can be used for their own advantage,” he said in an interview to CNN .
The former President was responding to a question on statements by U.S. leaders that ISI still has contacts with the terrorists.
General Musharraf, however, claimed that the ISI was not supporting the terror groups. “They will not support it [terrorism]. That was not the government policy. That was not the military policy. However, there was ingress.” He alleged that Afghan intelligence, government and President are under the influence of Indian intelligence agencies and he has documentary evidence on it.
India has rubbished Pakistan’s allegations saying it was not involved in any way in the troubles in Afghanistan.
“The Afghan intelligence [is] entirely under the influence of Indian intelligence. We know that,” he said when asked whether Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar is in the Quetta city of Pakistan.
“Whatever I am saying, I am not saying it here [for the first time]. I have given documentary evidence of all this to everyone. There is the documentary evidence. And we know the involvement of Indian intelligence, in India, with their intelligence,” General Musharraf, currently in London, charged.
He said foreign troops are not welcome in Afghanistan, but now since they are there, they should win the battle against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
“We have to defeat the Al-Qaeda, we have to dominate the Taliban, and we have to introduce a credible, legitimate government in Afghanistan. But we cannot leave before that,” he said.
