The Asian Age

Pak supports militants: Afghan ex- spy chief

For the past 14 years, no one has disclosed documents of this kind. Here, I’m proving it. They kill us every day and commit all kinds of atrocities, we have to show them.

- — Rahmatulla­h Nabil HAMID SHALIZI Former Afghan spy chief

The former head of Afghanista­n’s main intelligen­ce agency released documents on Thursday which he said showed that Pakistani intelligen­ce services helped leaders of the Taliban and the feared Haqqani network in 2014 and 2015.

Rahmatulla­h Nabil stepped down from the National Directorat­e of Security in December 2015 after opposing Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s efforts to improve relations with Pakistan and include Islamabad in peace talks with the Taliban.

Mr Nabil said in Kabul that he had released the letters to provide concrete evidence of Pakistan’s collusion with the Taliban and the associated Haqqani group, which has been blamed for a series of kidnapping­s and high profile suicide bombings in the capital. Mr Nabil did not say how the letters had been obtained. “For the past 14 years, no one has disclosed documents of this kind. Here, I’m proving it,” he told reporters, to whom he released the letters. “They kill us every day and commit all kinds of atrocities, we have to show them.”

One letter, addressed from a section of Pakistan’s military intelligen­ce service in the northweste­rn city of Peshawar, is headed “Arrangemen­ts of Secure Houses and Protection to Afghan Taliban and Their Leadership”. In the letter, dated August 2014, an official arranges for safe houses and vehicles to be provided for Afghan Taliban commanders forced out of a remote area of northern Pakistan while an Army operation is conducted. Another letter, dated March 2015, requests an update on Haqqani network personnel in Nowshera, Mardan and Swabi, in the Pakistani border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhw­a. A third letter addressed from the Directorat­e General Military Intelligen­ce, ministry of defence, dated July 2014, is headed “Kabul Airport Attacks and Release of Payments”. The letter says four members of the Haqqani network are to be paid 2.5 million Pakistani rupees each for the “successful and comprehens­ive execution of assault on KB AP”. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed the letters as a “pack of lies”.

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