(AFP/Washington Times) - Pakistan helped al-Qaeda launch its operations in Afghanistan in the 1990s and secretly ran a major training camp used by Osama bin Laden's terror network, according to documents produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency in the fall of 2001 and declassified in a censored version this week. The raw intelligence paints a complex picture of factional rivalry in which Pakistan had tried to use the Taliban and al-Qaeda to promote its influence in Afghanistan - only to eventually lose control over both of them. "Taliban acceptance and approval of fundamentalist non-Afghans as part of their fighting force were merely an extension of Pakistani policy during the Soviet-Afghan war," said one of the DIA dispatches. It said Pakistani agents "encouraged, facilitated and often escorted Arabs from the Middle East into Afghanistan."
2003-09-18 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive