Talk:Inter-Services Intelligence activities in Afghanistan/Archive 1

Archive 1

Communist Afghanistan

Where is the information on the ISIs activities in Afghanistan during the communist period??? --TIAYN (talk) 16:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

To be added, been busy. Darkness Shines (talk) 17:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

this page is full of POV please remove the false allegations which you even present as hard facts. Pakistan army recruiting suicide bombers! You guys are very very funny --39.47.46.80 (talk) 20:43, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Abuse of sources

The following text:

The Pakistani army and intelligence service are massively recruiting suicide bombers for the Afghan Taliban among the 1.7 million registered and 1-2 million unregistered Pashtun Afghan refugees living in refugee camps and settlements in Pakistan many of whom have lived there since the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Abdel Qadir, an Afghan refugee who returned to Afghanistan, says Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had asked him to either receive training to join the Afghan Taliban or for him and his family to leave the country. He explains: "It is a step by step process. First they come, they talk to you. They ask you for the information ... Then gradually they ask you for people they can train and send [to Afghanistan]. ... They say, 'Either you do what we say, or you leave the country.'"

Janat Gul, another former refugee who returned to Afghanistan, told the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, that Afghan refugees which had been successfully recruited by the ISI were taken to Pakistani training camps which had previously been used during the times of the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Is not only a pile of crap, but is also grossly abusing the citation it is sourced to ([1]). The citation does not mention a single sentence about suicide bombers. The second and third paraphrases are selectively cherry-picked and misrepresenting the context (and the overall content of the source in general). The source is in fact mostly talking about this in the frame of waning tolerance among Pakistani security forces, for the Afghan refugees:

• The government of Pakistan wants to put a lot of pressure on Afghanis to return, more than they ever had before
• IRIN spoke to more than a dozen recently returned Afghan men who detailed arbitrary arrests and detentions, disappearances, beatings, and disturbing visits by intelligence officers - allegedly either accusing them of supporting Pakistani insurgents..'
• Analysts say the Afghan...... governments have been waging a proxy war by harbouring and supporting insurgents - and refugees are being caught in the middle....
• This is the entire quote of the refugee named Gul: Qiamat Gul, a taxi driver, said the Pakistani military entered his home in Chakdara camp at night, searched “everything” and threw his belongings outside. They accused him of helping the Pakistani Taliban, which has officially been fighting a guerilla war against the military since 2007. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harbouring and supporting the militants.

The end part of the source is entirely about the government of Pakistan dismissing these allegations and saying that they are single incidents and that they are normal procedures that come as part and parcel of having a large number of refugees. Having read and scanned through the source, I am going to remove this (and the content above) since it is being cherry-picked and misrepresenting most of the context. Mar4d (talk) 01:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

The United Nations source, which talks about the Afghan refugees in Pakistan in many ways, says (btw, the names used are not the real names but pseudonyms for protection issues)[2]:

"Another returnee, Abdel Qadir, said he was faced with the opposite challenge, when [Pakistani] intelligence agencies asked him to join the Afghan Taliban, allegedly supported by the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI.

“It is a step by step process. First they come, they talk to you. They ask you for the information … Then gradually they ask you for people they can train and send [to Afghanistan].”

“They say, ‘Either you do what we say, or you leave the country.’”

One returnee, Janat Gul, from Afghanistan’s Kunar Province, told IRIN recruits are taken in covered trucks to a training camp in the desert called Qariyat - which he himself attended during Soviet years - before being sent to Afghanistan to fight."

Sandy Gall in War against the Taliban:

"...families whose sons had died as suicide bombers in Afghanistan said they were afraid to talk about the deaths because of pressure from Pakistani intelligence agents, the ISI. Local people said dozens of families had lost sons in Afghanistan as suicide bombers and fighters ... One former Taliban commander said in an interview [with the New York Times] that he had been jailed by the ISI because he would not go to Afghanistan to fight. He said that, for Western and local consumption, his arrest had been billed as part of Pakistan's "crackdown" on the Taliban. Former Taliban members who had refused to fight in Afghanistan had been arrested - or even mysteriously killed - after resisting pressure to re-enlist in the Taliban, according to Pakistani and Afghan tribal elders."

The New York Times investigative report[3]:

"More than two weeks of reporting along this frontier, including dozens of interviews with residents on each side of the porous border, leaves little doubt that Quetta is an important base for the Taliban, and found many signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents ... The evidence is provided in fearful whispers, and it is anecdotal. ... families whose sons had died as suicide bombers in Afghanistan said they were afraid to talk about the deaths because of pressure from Pakistani intelligence agents. Local people say dozens of families have lost sons in Afghanistan as suicide bombers and fighters.

One former Taliban commander said in an interview that he had been jailed by Pakistani intelligence officials because he would not go to Afghanistan to fight. He said that, for Western and local consumption, his arrest had been billed as part of Pakistan’s crackdown on the Taliban in Pakistan. Former Taliban members who have refused to fight in Afghanistan have been arrested — or even mysteriously killed — after resisting pressure to re-enlist in the Taliban, Pakistani and Afghan tribal elders said. ...

Pakistanis and Afghans interviewed on the frontier, frightened by the long reach of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, spoke only with assurances that they would not be named. Even then, they spoke cautiously.

The Pakistani military and intelligence services have for decades used religious parties as a convenient instrument to keep domestic political opponents at bay and for foreign policy adventures, said Husain Haqqani, a former adviser to several of Pakistan’s prime ministers and the author of a book on the relationship between the Islamists and the Pakistani security forces. ...

Pakistan has long seen jihadi movements like the Taliban as a counter to Indian and Russian influence next door in Afghanistan, the Western diplomat and other analysts said, and as a way to provide Pakistan with “strategic depth,” or a friendly buffer on its western border.

In Pashtunabad, a warren of high mud-brick walls and narrow lanes in Quetta, the links of the government, religious parties and Taliban commanders to a local madrasa are thinly hidden, said a local opposition party member who lives in the neighborhood.

Three students from the madrasa went to Afghanistan recently on suicide missions, he said. The family of one of the men admitted that he had blown himself up but denied that he had attended the school. The man’s brother suggested that he had been forced into the mission and that someone had recruited him for payment.

“Nowadays people are getting money from somewhere and they are killing other people’s children,” he said. “We are afraid of this [Pakistani] government,” he said. His father said he feared the same people would try to take his other son and asked that no family names be used. ...

His eldest son, Allah Dad, 33, blamed the jihadi groups and the Inter-Services Intelligence. “We don’t know how he made contact with those jihadi groups,” he said. “There are some groups active in taking people to Afghanistan and they are active in Quetta.

“All Taliban are I.S.I. Taliban,” he added. “It is not possible to go to Afghanistan without the help of the I.S.I. Everyone says this.”"

I think, I actually let out several things which could be mentioned. More refs are also coming. Now let's observe how ISI fans will try to twist the information. It is an art. JCAla (talk) 07:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

References