Pakistan denies allegations of Afghanistan meddling

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's military and political establishment on Monday angrily denied a report that alleges enduring ties to the Afghan Taliban and that America's ally was playing a double-game.

On Sunday, the London School of Economics published a report that said its research strongly suggested support for the Taliban was the "official policy" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

Although links between the ISI and the Taliban have been widely suspected, the report's findings, which it said were confirmed by two senior Western security officials, could raise more concerns in the West over Pakistan's role in Afghanistan.

The document also said Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was reported to have visited senior Taliban prisoners in Pakistan earlier this year and is believed to have promised their release and help for militant operations.

Farah Ispahani, a spokeswoman for Zardari, called the allegations "absolutely spurious" and suggested they were an attempt to derail U.S.-Pakistani strategic talks.

Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said: "It's the same old story which provides no credible evidence. It is misleading with malicious intent. We reject it."

A senior ISI official called the report "rubbish" and said it was "full of insinuations and there is no proof of anything."

And even a senior Taliban commander told Reuters via satellite phone that the Afghan Taliban had no links to the ISI or "any foreign country, including Pakistan."

For some Pakistani analysts and Taliban watchers, however, the report and the establishment's reactions are no surprise.

"Pakistan, the army, the ISI, they know where these people are, how they operate. They can get in touch with them any time, they can arrest them, they can release them, that is correct," said analyst Rahimullah Yusufzai in Peshawar, a frontier town and staging point for the Afghan fight against Soviet forces.

LONGSTANDING TIES

Pakistan has long admitted ties to the men and groups who made up the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, and Pakistan saw the emergent Taliban as a key strategic asset in the chaos of post-Soviet Afghanistan against arch-rival India.

After the Taliban claimed Kabul, Pakistan became one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

After that, however, under withering U.S. pressure, Pakistan said it had severed ties with the Taliban. But that has not truly been the case, many inside and outside of Pakistan allege.

"These ties are so old and so deep that it's not possible to do away with them so soon," Yusufzai said.

"They have links with the Taliban. There should be no doubt," said retired ISI Brigadier Asad Munir. "It's not unique. Every agency maintains such contacts."

But he scoffed at one of the most explosive charges: that the ISI is represented on the Quetta Shura, the leadership council of the Afghan Taliban, saying such an arrangement is unnecessary.

"Why would I sit in a meeting if I'm getting everything, whatever is discussed there, through my trusted guys?" he said. "During the Afghan jihad when everything was so open, we never attended mujahideen meetings, but we were getting every information, even from those chaps who were unfriendly with us."

In March 2009, two senior U.S. military officials said they had indications that elements in the ISI supported the Taliban and that it must end such activities.

Western officials, however, have been reluctant to talk publicly on the subject for fear of damaging cooperation from Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state Washington has propped up with billions of dollars in military and economic aid.

"Americans know all these things, I think, that Pakistan has links with the Taliban," said Yusufzai. "Pakistan, I think, is now justifying those links. Pakistan has been telling the Americans that, 'Look, we need to maintain contacts with these guys because if you decide to talk to them then we can help.'"

Despite what the report described as Pakistan's alleged double-gamesmanship, the United States needs Pakistan, he said.

"They know that most of the al Qaeda guys, Afghan Taliban are hiding here, so how do they get them without Pakistani cooperation? It seems that Americans know of this, but they are tolerating this because they still need Pakistan."

Although relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have improved since Zardari came to power in 2008, Kabul has consistently maintained insurgents waging war on its own soil are trained and sheltered across the border.

On Monday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's spokesman echoed these previous statements but stopped short of naming Pakistan or the ISI.

"Afghanistan ... has always maintained that terrorists' havens, terrorists' training centers and funding for them are outside Afghanistan's borders and that unfortunately there are organizations who directly have links with the terrorists," Waheed Omer told a news conference.

"There are some biting truths in this report."

(Additional Reporting by Kamram Haider and Zeeshan Haider and Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL; Editing by Ron Popeski)

(For more coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: here)