ISI factions retain sympathies for the Taliban: Report

Betwa Sharma
New York, Mar 4 (PTI) Former Pakistani army officers are
continuing to train Taliban fighters and have helped the
militant outfit to stage a remarkable comeback since 2006.
The army trainers of the Taliban include some officers
trained in prestigious US military academies, who now in
public utterances remain vocal advocates of the outfit, New
York Times reported.
These officers, some of whom have even risen high in
Pakistan Army hierarchy, have no qualms that their trained
fighters are battling their one time mentors, the paper
reported saying their views reveal that the sympathies that
have long run deep in the ranks of Pakistan's military and
intelligence services.
The paper interviewed a retired Colonel Imam, a former US
trained officer in Pakistan's spy agency ISI who sent
insurgents into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union in the
80's and then to support the Taliban takeover of the country.
By his own account, the paper said the Colonel was so
close to the Taliban supremo at large Mulla Muhammad Omar that
he visited him days after the September 9/11 attacks and left
Kabul only when American bombing campaign began later in 2001.
Colonel Imam, whose real name is Brig Sultan Amir, claims
he has not returned to Afghanistan since and his parting
advise to Omar was to fight on, but stick to guerrilla
tactics.
"Despite Pakistan's recent arrest of several high-level
Taliban commanders, men like Colonel Imam sit at the centre of
the questions that linger around what Pakistan's actual
intentions are towards the Taliban," the paper said. PTI