Not So Much In The Dark As You Might Think

As a follow up to an entry posted a few days ago, an article of note from the New York Times entitled - C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants…

“The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.

The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.

The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The C.I.A. has depended heavily on the ISI for information about militants in Pakistan, despite longstanding concerns about divided loyalties within the Pakistani spy service, which had close relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks.

That ISI officers have maintained important ties to anti-American militants has been the subject of previous reports in The New York Times. But the C.I.A. and the Bush administration have generally sought to avoid criticism of Pakistan, which they regard as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism.”

This should come as absolutely no surprise whatsoever, least of all to the Central Intelligence Agency who used the ISI as their primary conduit with regards to supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 80’s. The CIA is, by no means, in the dark when it comes to the reality of the ghost government that the ISI represents. To present information that they are, in any way, shocked that elements within the ISI (or as a whole) have continued to support those that they have, for years, considered invaluably quintessential with regards to the injection of Pakistani influence in the region is a stretch to say the least.