“The Pakistani military organised and supported the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan in 1996. Similar tactics were used in Kashmir against India after 1989,” said the much-awaited report by UN-appointed independent panel to probe the killing of former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto.
The three-member panel concluded that such a policy of the Pakistan military to use terrorists as a tool to achieve its strategic objectives against its neighbours resulted in active linkages between elements of military and the establishment with radical Islamists at the expense of national secular forces.
Noting that the jihadi organisations are based largely in Pakistan’s Punjab province, the report said that members of these groups aided the Taliban effort in Afghanistan at the behest of ISI.
Published 16 April 2010, 17:40 IST