Washington: The ISI facilitated militants
to cross the border to carry out strikes on Indian targets
chosen by the Pakistan Army, several detainees at the
Guantanamo Bay facility told US interrogators, according to a
fresh set of American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.
The interrogation reports quoted a detainee as saying
that ISI "allowed" militants to travel to India where they
conducted bombings, kidnappings and killing of Kashmiri people
and the targets were picked up by the Pakistani Army.
The revelations add to Pakistan`s embarrassment after
Osama bin Laden was found living at a million-dollar mansion
in the garrison city of Abbottabad.
The US was long aware of the presence of anti-India
terror training camps in Pakistan with several inmates telling
investigators how ISI allowed militants to carry attacks in
India.
The disclosures are part of 779 interrogation reports
from the facility of detainees from all over the world and
show how a number of detainees were linked to anti-India
Lashkar-e-Taiba and had received terror training in Pakistan.
The reports quote detainees from countries like Saudi
Arabia, Algeria and Pakistan as telling interrogators about
their recruitment and subsequent travelling to Pakistan for
terror training before their actual deployment to launch
attacks against India and also Afghanistan.
An Algerian detainee Abdul Azia admitted he was a
member of LeT for which he noted that "their mission (was) to
kill Indians in India", says a detailed report of his
interrogation, released by the whistleblower website.
"Detainee is assessed to have recruited in Saudi
Arabia and received training from the LT in Pakistan. The
detainees is further assessed to have participated in combat
in Kashmir, and then travelled to Afghanistan where he was
injured," says a note about Azia.
Records of a Pakistani prisoner named Mohammad Anwer
showed that he travelled to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir where he attended an LeT training camp for 21 days in
1998 and later served in Afghanistan.
"Detainee has been identified through sensitive
reporting as a Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence Dirctorate
agent," the document says.
One of the reports quotes Chaman Gul, an Afghan
militant as telling investigators about Mast Gul, a former
Major of the Pakistani Army, who was "a notorious terrorist
who fought in Kashmir and planned terror attacks against a
number of targets in Kabul.
Gul is closely alligned to Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin
(HIG), an al Qaeda linked group and ISI Directorate.
The detainee claimed that Mast Gul controlled all
guerilla activity in Kashmir from his home base in
Muzaffarabad.
Chaman also said that militants were deployed for
three to four months and then asked to return.
He also said as member of Hizb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, he
was part of a plan to assassinate Karzai and the US
ambassador.
While one detainee Yacoub claimed that he had got a
security job with the Hamid Karzai government, another said he
was an informant of British intelligence service.
In another such assessment report, a senior al Qaeda
operative was said to be planning to use Indians for terror
attacks because of the low-level of scrutiny Indians are
subjected to in the western nations.
"Detainee admitted that he had considered using India
as a platform to send operatives to the US or UK because of
the large Muslim population there and the low level of
scrutiny given to travellers of Indian nationality," the
document on Abu al-Libi says.
PTI
