Pakistan ISI backs Taliban

A new report has suggested that Pakistan's intelligence agency is supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, providing them with funds and training. The report released Sunday by the London School of Economics (LSE) says that support for the Taliban is the "official policy" of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and the body provides funds and sanctuary for the militant group on a larger scale than previously thought. LSE, which is deemed a leading British institution, also suggests that support for the Taliban "is approved at the highest level of Pakistan's civilian government." "Pakistan appears to be playing a double-game of astonishing magnitude," said the report's author, Matt Waldman, after allegedly speaking to several militants in Afghanistan as well as Western and Afghan security officials. Almost all of the Taliban militants interviewed in the report believed that the ISI was represented on the Quetta Shura, the Taliban's supreme leadership council based in Pakistan. "Interviews strongly suggest that the ISI has representatives on the (Quetta) Shura, either as participants or observers, and the agency is thus involved at the highest level of the movement," the report said. The report also claimed that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, along with a senior ISI official, has allegedly visited some senior Taliban prisoners in Pakistan and promised to free them. A spokesman for Pakistan's ISI called the claims "rubbish" and part of a malicious campaign against the country.