Pakistan Accuses Karzai of Backing Taliban Factions

ISI Says Afghan Govt Directly Financing Terror in Tribal Areas

by Jason Ditz, March 27, 2013 Antiwar.com

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency is usually on the receiving end of allegations about secret backing for Taliban factions from Hamid Karzai, but today is leveling some of their own, accusing Afghan President Hamid Karzai of using his government to prop up the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan’s auxiliary factions in several tribal areas.

The allegations center on the TTP-Malakand’s area, with the group active across the Swat Valley as well as the neighboring Bajaur Agency. This is the group that the Pakistani military attacked, at the behest of the US, in 2009. The group’s leadership fled into Afghanistan after the war, and still crosses back into Pakistan to launch attacks regularly.

This has angered Pakistan’s military, which has charged that the Afghan government is deliberately avoiding taking out the group’s bases of operations. NATO has repeatedly defended this by insisting Pakistan isn’t very effective at doing that inside Pakistan’s tribal areas either.

The ISI’s claims go well beyond that though, arguing the Karzai government is providing them with funding for terrorist attacks along the border. This suggests the recent inability to cooperate on peace talks has deep-rooted suspicions behind it, and isn’t going to change any time soon.