Mullen Asserts Pakistani Role in Attack on U.S. Embassy
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
NYT
WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s intelligence agency aided the insurgents who attacked the American Embassy in Kabul last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate on Thursday.
In comments that were the first to directly link Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, with an assault on the United States, Admiral Mullen went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the American military effort in Afghanistan. The United States has long said that the ISI has close links to Afghan insurgents, particularly the Haqqani network, but no one has been as blunt as Admiral Mullen. He is to retire at the end of this month.
Coming from Admiral Mullen, the statements carried exceptional weight. He has been the American military official who has led the effort for years to improve cooperation with the Pakistanis. But this year relations have skidded badly. They have reached a nadir since American commandoes located and killed Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan. Pakistani officials were not told of the raid in advance, and questions still remain about whether Pakistani intelligence was sheltering the Qaeda leader.
The attack on the American embassy, and ISI support for the Haqqani network — which also forms one of the most lethal parts of the insurgency attacking American forces in Afghanistan — is the latest point of tension.
(More here.)
NYT
WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s intelligence agency aided the insurgents who attacked the American Embassy in Kabul last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate on Thursday.
In comments that were the first to directly link Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, with an assault on the United States, Admiral Mullen went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the American military effort in Afghanistan. The United States has long said that the ISI has close links to Afghan insurgents, particularly the Haqqani network, but no one has been as blunt as Admiral Mullen. He is to retire at the end of this month.
Coming from Admiral Mullen, the statements carried exceptional weight. He has been the American military official who has led the effort for years to improve cooperation with the Pakistanis. But this year relations have skidded badly. They have reached a nadir since American commandoes located and killed Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan. Pakistani officials were not told of the raid in advance, and questions still remain about whether Pakistani intelligence was sheltering the Qaeda leader.
The attack on the American embassy, and ISI support for the Haqqani network — which also forms one of the most lethal parts of the insurgency attacking American forces in Afghanistan — is the latest point of tension.
(More here.)
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