KABUL // Pakistan arranged to keep leaders of the Afghan Taliban safe from its army’s offensive on militants in the country’s north-west and paid members of the associated Haqqani network for an attack on Kabul’s airport, according to documents released by the former head of Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency.
Rahmatullah Nabil said the letters showed how Pakistani intelligence services helped leaders of the Taliban and the Haqqani network in 2014 and 2015.
Mr Nabil stepped down from the National Directorate of Security (NDS) in December last year after opposing Afghan president Ashraf Ghani’s efforts to improve relations with Pakistan and include Islamabad in peace talks with the Taliban.
Since then, he has been strongly critical of Pakistan, which is routinely accused by Afghanistan of sponsoring the Afghan Taliban, a charge it has consistently denied.
He told journalists in Kabul to whom he released the letters on Thursday that he wanted to provide concrete evidence of Pakistan’s collusion with the Taliban and the Haqqani network, which has been blamed for a series of kidnappings and high-profile suicide bombings in the capital.
“For the past 14 years, no one has disclosed documents of this kind. Here, I’m proving it,” Mr Nabil said. “They kill us every day and commit all kinds of atrocities, we have to show them.”
Pakistan’s foreign office and the army’s media wing did not respond to several written and telephoned requests for comment on the accusations. Neither the NDS nor the Afghan government was available for immediate comment.
Mr Nabil did not say how the letters had been obtained, and their authenticity could not be verified independently.
One letter, addressed from a section of Pakistan’s military intelligence service in the north-western city of Peshawar, is headed “Arrangements of Secure Houses and Protection to Afghan Taliban and Their Leadership”.
In the letter, dated August 2014, an official arranges for safe houses and vehicles to be provided for Afghan Taliban commanders forced out of a remote area of northern Pakistan while an army operation is conducted.
Another letter, dated March 2015, requests an update on Haqqani network personnel in Nowshera, Mardan and Swabi, in the Pakistani border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
A third letter from the Directorate General Military Intelligence, Ministry of Defence, dated July 2014, is headed “Kabul Airport Attacks and Release of Payments”.
The letter says four members of the Haqqani network are to be paid 2.5 million Pakistani rupees (Dh87,475) each for the “successful and comprehensive execution of assault on KB AP”.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed the letters as a “pack of lies” and said the group did not need foreign help in the fight against the Afghan government and its western allies.
“Anyone can create such documents these days and that’s why we don’t take it seriously,” he said.
The Taliban has refused to take part in peace talks with the Afghan government, which indicated on Thursday that it had no plans for fresh attempts to start negotiations by a four-nation group comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan China and the United States.
Authorities in Islamabad have long rejected accusations that Pakistan has provided support and sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban and its leaders, saying it has for years itself been a victim of terrorism, much of it from groups based in Afghanistan.
The release of the documents comes amid worsening tensions between the neighbouring countries in recent weeks, with days of clashes last month during which troops on the border exchanged artillery fire.
It also came days after Pakistan faced heavy criticism in a hearing of the US congressional foreign affairs committee in Washington.
Afghan president Ghani sharply criticised Pakistan during a visit to a Nato summit in Warsaw last week, and has accused it of conducting an “undeclared war” against Afghanistan.
In response, Islamabad said that Afghanistan was playing a “blame game” instead of cooperating effectively to stop terrorism.
Pakistan’s critics say that it supports extremist militants in Afghanistan to maintain influence and counter attempts by arch-rival India to gain a foothold, effectively surrounding it.
* Reuters
