Pakistan’s ISI suspected of funding attack on CIA outpost: Documents
Pakistan’s intelligence agency may have provided terror groups with the necessary funds to carry out a deadly attack on a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) base in Afghanistan, newly declassified US State Department cables allege.
The heavily redacted cable, which was released by The National Security Archive at George Washington University on Wednesday, was sent about two weeks after the attack on December 30, 2009, and details an alleged meeting between operatives from the al-Qaeda affiliate Haqqani network and a number of unidentified officers with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The US document states that according to “not finally evaluated intelligence” the ISI had given the terror network $200,000 to “enable” the attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan’s Khost province.
Seven CIA officers and a Jordanian intelligence operative were killed during the attack that was carried out by a double agent, a Jordanian named Hammam Khalil Mohammed.
He was reportedly invited to the base to help the American spy agency track down senior al Qaeda operatives.
The CIA refused to answer questions about the report’s veracity, or whether there is stronger intelligence that concretely holds the ISI responsible for funding the Chapman bombing.
Another State Department cable that was also released on Wednesday under a Freedom of Information Act request stated that the Haqqani network’s leaders were holding monthly meetings with the ISI in the capital city of Islamabad as of late December 2009.
The unconfirmed allegations against Pakistan come in a time when according to a recent assessment by Islamabad, most of the Haqqani terrorist network has been obliterated by the country’s armed forces.
Sartaj Aziz, an adviser on national security and foreign affairs for Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said in August of last year that most of the Haqqani network's base had been destroyed by an army operation that began in the North Waziristan tribal district.
The Haqqani network is allied with Taliban and al-Qaeda militants and has conducted many attacks against US targets, including the 2009 Camp Chapman bombing in eastern Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA agents.
Washington says future payments of hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Pakistan are contingent upon Islamabad’s eradication of the group.
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