The relationship between the ISI and terror groups is not surprising, says a top US general based in Afghanistan, who has also recommended that the dreaded Haqqani network of Taliban be slapped with sanctions.
“I don’t think we should be surprised that they (ISI) have a relationship with them (terrorist organisations). That relationship between the ISI and a number of these organisations goes back a very long time,” Gen John Allen, commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said.
His comments came in response to a question at the Brookings Institute, an eminent Washington-based think-tank.
The top US General said he had also recommended that the Haqqani network be slapped with sanctions. However, he said there were opportunities for the US to work with Pakistan to increase the bilateral cooperation.
“The November cross-border incident set back the relationship that we had across the border, and I have sought in the aftermath of the investigation to put in a number of control measures and to revamp a number of processes and procedures which will reduce to the maximum extent possible the recurrence of something like that,” he said.
Allen said there had been several meetings – three in the last couple of months – where general officers from ISAF, ANSF and Pakistan had met to begin the process of restoring the border relationship.
“It was actually even more than that. The border relationship was important to the overarching trilateral relationship – ISAF, ANSF and the Pakistani military – which would culminate, ultimately, in a tripartite relationship, where we could even do campaign planning, so that we had complementary effects across the border,” he said.
“The US is not right now at the point with the Pakistanis that it can have that kind of a conversation about complementary or cooperative operations across the border,” he noted.
“Safe havens have been no value really to the Pakistanis either. They’ve had more than 2,000 killed in their own counter-insurgency operations in the last couple of years. They’ve paid a price for Pakistani military operations,” Allen said.
“So depending on the outcome of the debate in Parliament in Islamabad, it would be my desire that we begin as soon as we can to talk about how we might combine our capabilities across the border to get after the safe havens in general, but also to go after some of the insurgents,” he said.
Allen also said the US and NATO troops will continue to face the threat of attacks from their Afghan counterparts for the duration of their mission.
Asked whether he thinks the so-called “green-on-blue” incidents will continue, the general said “it is a characteristic of counterinsurgencies that we’ve experienced before”.
“We should expect that this will occur in counterinsurgency operations and as we saw it in Iraq and as we’ve seen it historically in counterinsurgencies, but also in Vietnam,” Allen said at a Pentagon briefing. “It is a characteristic of this kind of warfare.”
The remarks came amid new reports of “green-on-blue” attacks, in which three foreign soldiers were killed by Afghan security personnel Monday, bringing the number of such deaths to 16 this year.
While the Taliban has claimed responsibility for a majority of these incidents, many of the attacks “are not a direct result” of Taliban infiltration into the Afghan military, said Allen.
“It’s also no secret that the Taliban has had as an objective for some period of time infiltrating the ranks of both the ANSF ( Afghan National Security Forces) and those elements that support us directly on board our camps,” he added.
