Ex ISI chief says Afghan war document leak originated from India

RAWALPINDI - Former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul has alleged that India is where the leak of classified U.S. military reports implicating Pakistani aid to the Taliban originated.

Gul said that Indian officials fed the reports to Afghan intelligence agents and intelligence “contractors” who are paid for each report they file.

“The reports are meant to pressure Pakistan to toe the American line,” The Washington Post quoted Gul, as saying.

He also described the leak as the start of a White House plot.

“The document leak was orchestrated to indict Bush-era war policy, and the troop surge to expose Pentagon follies; soon a massive antiwar movement will rise,” Gul said.

Gul was ISI chief from 1987 to 1989, when he helped the CIA funnel Islamist fighters into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.

He has been named in about 10 of the leaked documents, which proves fears that the ISI supported the Taliban.

According to the documents, he possessed dozens of bombs for Taliban fighters to detonate in Kabul, instructed militants to kidnap United Nations workers, hatched a plan for a suicide bombing in Afghanistan to avenge an insurgent and assured fighters that Pakistan would provide them a haven.

Gul has however branded the reports as “pure fiction”, saying that his main occupation in retirement was spending time with his grandchildren. (ANI)