Sayed Anwar

The Los Angeles Times reports that Taliban forces are being trained in Pakistan’s tribal border region with support from Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI. It is believed that the Pakistani ISI has made more sophisticated technology available to the Taliban in recent months, including the ability to construct and detonate bombs at long distance using cordless phones to transmit the detonation signals. Pakistan officially denies these charges. However, Lt. Sayed Anwar, acting head of Afghanistan’s counter-terrorism department, says: “Pakistan is lying. We have very correct reports from their areas. We have our intelligence agents inside Pakistan’s border as well.… They say they are friends of Americans, and yet they order these people to kill Americans.” Anwar said that intelligence agents operating in Pakistan and captured prisoners describe an extensive network of militant training camps in areas of the North Waziristan tribal region. He alleges there are at least seven camps there which are closed to outsiders and guarded by Pakistani troops. Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani journalist working for the Los Angeles Times, was able to sneak into one of the camps and saw armed militants, some as young as 13, undergoing ideological orientation and weapons training. Sources say at least 13 militant camps had been reactivated in the month of May. The camps are allegedly funded and supplied by the ISI. Lt. Naqibullah Nooristani, an operations commander for Afghan troops fighting with US soldiers, says the Taliban have been resurgent recently because they are receiving improved training and equipment in Pakistan. [Los Angeles Times, 7/28/2005]