A Brief Refresher on the Taliban's Worst-Kept Secret | Mother Jones

Mother Jones

A Brief Refresher on the Taliban's Worst-Kept Secret

Wikileaks' papers are just the latest Afghan military shockers to surface. Remember Reagan and the Pakistani spooks?

— By James Ridgeway

Fri Jul. 30, 2010 5:31 PM PDT

The "most damning collection of data" in Wikileaks' massive trove of secret documents from Afghanistan are 180 files that show the Pakistani intelligence service helping Taliban insurgents in their fight against US forces. The documents are dark reading indeed: They describe Pakistani agents meeting directly with the Taliban, supporting commanders of the insurgency, and even training suicide bombers. But for anyone versed in the contemporary history of Afghanistan, they are hardly news. The Wikileaks data dump is just the tip of the iceberg; ISI black ops and double-crosses date back at least three decades. Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, is merely feeding a monster it helped create back in the 1990s—with the full knowledge of the United States. Indeed, in concert with the CIA, the Pakistani spy agency also helped create Al Qaeda, and continued to support it long after it had gone astray of US interests.

That context is especially useful now. I explored the Taliban's history in my 2005 book The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11, which asked, did US 'allies' help make the attacks possible?" Most of what follows is adapted from that book.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the Pakistani intelligence service became a key part of the CIA's strategy in the country, where a full-scale covert war was carried out under Ronald Reagan, with hundreds of millions in funding eventually provided by Congress.
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A Brief Refresher on the Taliban's Worst-Kept Secret | Mother Jones