US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a diplomatic cable said that despite public disavowal, some officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) continued to maintain ties with a wide array of extremist organisations, in particular the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, reported The Hindu newspaper.
The cable, dated December 30, 2009, was sent to the US embassies in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The cable mainly focussed illegal finance flows into Pakistan and Afghanistan from some Gulf countries. “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”
The country is described as a ‘critical financial support base for al Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT, and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raises millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Haj and Ramadan. It said the extremist outfits exploited Pakistan’s network of charities, non-governmental organisations and madrassas, which provided them with recruits, funding and infrastructure to plan new attacks.
Clinton accused Pakistan of seeking to block the listing of Pakistan-based terrorists as well as ‘affiliated’ ones nominated by India under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267.
Clinton links ISI with terror outfits: WikiLeaks
