PAKISTAN The Pakistani intelligence service is on a list of organizations considered to be “terrorist” entities, according to documents released on the Wikileaks website.
That revelation appears likely to further sour relations with the United States, which has often sparred with Pakistan’s leadership over efforts to disrupt al Qaeda while subsidizing the country’s military with billions of dollars in aid.
Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence was included among groups that “may have provided support to al Qaeda and the Taliban, or engaged in hostilities against U.S. and coalition forces.”
The CIA and the ISI have worked together since the Sept. 11 attacks to hunt down al Qaeda operatives in that country. Other documents published by Wikileaks show that the U.S. believed the city of Karachi, Pakistan, to be the center of al Qaeda activity just before the attacks.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the ISI had maintained links to the powerful network of an Afghan warlord that has bases in a northwestern tribal region of Pakistan. Hours later, Pakistani military officials denounced that statement as “negative propaganda” by the United States.
