Taliban aiding ISI agents’ infiltration: Karimi

KABUL on Tuesday.

Chief of Army Staff Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi told the upper house Pakistan had been intensifying interference in Afghanistan since the inception of the reconciliation campaign.

In a bid to achieve its designs, Pakistan did not want Afghanistan to expand relations with India and other countries, he alleged, without elaborating on Islamabad’s goals.

Gen. Karimi accused the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of infiltrating its agents into Afghanistan recently in the garb of Taliban to fight against Afghan security personnel. However, he offered no further details.

The neighbouring country, which had closed religious schools to send students to Afghanistan for fighting, was encouraging the insurgents to step up their resistance, the general said.

Despite its strong denials, Pakistan continues to fire rocket barrages into eastern Kunar province and other border areas, according to Karimi, who said: “But so far, we haven’t replied in kind to the incursions.”

Amid efforts to strengthen Afghan security forces to thwart neighbours’ meddling, he said the US would provide the Afghan Air Force three warplanes this year and as many in 2014.

Deputy Minister of Interior Abdur Rahman Rahman also held Pakistan responsible for creating the Taliban movement. He blamed the ISI for dispatching fighters to Afghanistan.

Poppy farmers, drug smugglers and terrorists were being dealt with under relevant laws, he insisted, saying that “wrong remarks” from political commentators had contributed to the current wave of insecurity.

In was trying to enhance its influence in Afghanistan through charities and cultural organisations, Rahman claimed, acknowledging: “Insecurity is fast increasing, to all people’s chagrin”

Senate Chairman Fazal Hadi Muslimyar declared the session incamera before the deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) began to share his views with legislators.

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