Reports Depict Pakistani Ex-Spy as Taliban Link

By ZAHID HUSSAIN And TOM WRIGHT
WSJ

ISLAMABAD—To some, Hamid Gul, a former Pakistani spy chief now in the spotlight because of his appearance in leaked U.S. military documents, is a puppet master controlling militant attacks against U.S. and Indian forces in Afghanistan.

To others, he is little more than a conspiracy theorist who rants almost nightly on Pakistan TV talk-shows against the U.S., India and Israel.

U.S. intelligence reports published Sunday by WikiLeaks, an Internet document-publishing site, paint a picture of Mr. Gul and the Inter-Services Intelligence military spy agency that he headed in the late 1980s as working in recent years to attack American interests in Afghanistan.

Mr. Gul, 73 years old, said the reports about him were "completely baseless" and part of a U.S. conspiracy. "I am their favorite whipping boy and it is not the first time that such allegations are made against me," Mr. Gul said. "It is almost two decades since I am retired from the ISI, but they keep accusing me for everything."