U.S. pre-9/11 memos: Pakistan backs Taliban

updated 2:13 p.m. ET Aug. 16, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Newly declassified intelligence documents reveal the depth of U.S. officials’ concern that Pakistan was providing funds, arms — and even combat troops — to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for years before the Sept. 11 attacks.

They also show rising frustration at what U.S. officials called Pakistan’s “resistance and/or duplicity” toward Washington’s repeated requests for help in getting the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden. A top official at one point said hauling Pakistan before the U.N. Security Council should be considered.

The documents, released under a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington University’s National Security Archive and posted on its Web site, add detail to what is already generally known about U.S. intelligence on Pakistan’s links with the Taliban as it surged to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s.

The cables and letters between senior U.S. officials — most of them stamped “confidential” and heavily redacted for public release — lay out those concerns in language stripped of diplomatic niceties.

All but one of the 35 documents deal with the period between December 1994 and September 2000. Sensitive details, including what appear to be names, have been blacked out in many places.

Pakistan denies claims
They show that U.S. officials as early as 1994 believed Pakistan’s intelligence services were deeply involved with the Taliban and its takeover that year of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. It was the first major victory for the then-obscure religious militia that went on to capture the capital, Kabul, in September 1996 and then gain control of almost all of Afghanistan by mid-1997.

Responding to the new documents, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam reiterated Pakistan’s previous strong denials that the country ever gave military support to the Taliban. She also denied Pakistan ignored U.S. requests to use its influence to persuade the Taliban to surrender bin Laden.

In 1996, U.S. intelligence officials concluded Pakistan’s Interservice Intelligence was more involved with the Taliban than Pakistani officials had been telling American diplomats. An Oct. 22 cable to Washington said the service was supplying the Taliban with food and fuel, adding that “munitions convoys depart Pakistan late in the evening hours and are concealed to reveal their true contents.”

Two weeks later, another cable to Washington said large numbers of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps were being “utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary — combat” in Afghanistan. The Frontier Corps were comprised mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, who would not stand out among the Taliban, who were also mostly Pashtuns.

Aslam denied the cable’s claims. “That’s absolutely baseless. Our troops have never been involved inside Afghanistan,” she said.

The Taliban regime imposed a version of Islamic rule that was among the world’s strictest — subjugating women, banning music and chopping off the hands of thieves. But the Taliban won support inside and outside Afghanistan because its rise quelled fighting among regional warlords whose battle over power after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 killed countless civilians.

“There was a time when everyone supported them, because after the civil war everyone thought that they would bring stability and peace to Afghanistan and they might unify the nation,” Aslam said. Pakistan gave diplomatic recognition to Taliban rule in May 1997; recognition followed from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

MORE FROM SOUTH & CENTRAL ASIA

South & Central Asia Section Front

British leader defends Afghan mission U.S. commander: Afghan forces insufficient NYT: Did U.S. stop inquiry into massacre? India deaths from toxic liquor hit 112 U.K. losses mount in Afghanistan South & Central Asia Section Front   Add South & Central Asia headlines to your news reader: