On September 17, ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed heads a six-man delegation that visits Mullah Omar in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It is reported he is trying to convince Omar to extradite bin Laden or face an immediate US attack. [Press Trust of India, 9/17/2001; Financial Times, 9/18/2001; London Times, 9/18/2001] Also in the delegation is Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan, an ex-ISI official who appears to be one of Saeed Sheikh’s contacts in the ISI. [Press Trust of India, 9/17/2001] On September 28, Mahmood returns to Afghanistan with a group of about ten religious leaders. He talks with Omar, who again says he will not hand over bin Laden. [Agence France-Presse, 9/28/2001] A senior Taliban official later claims that on these trips Mahmood in fact urges Omar not to extradite bin Laden, but instead urges him to resist the US. [Associated Press, 2/21/2002; Time, 5/6/2002] Another account claims Mahmood does “nothing as the visitors [pour] praise on Omar and [fails] to raise the issue” of bin Laden’s extradition. [Knight Ridder, 11/3/2001] Two Pakistani brigadier generals connected to the ISI also accompany Mahmood, and advise al-Qaeda to counter the coming US attack on Afghanistan by resorting to mountain guerrilla war. The advice is not followed. [Asia Times, 9/11/2002] Other ISI officers also stay in Afghanistan to advise the Taliban.
September 19, 2001: Rumored Meeting Between Saudi Fundamentalists and ISI to Help Taliban
According to the private intelligence service Intelligence Online, a secret meeting between fundamentalist supporters in Saudi Arabia and the ISI takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on this day. Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz, the new head of Saudi intelligence, meet with Gen. Mohamed Youssef, head of the ISI’s Afghanistan Section, and ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed (just returning from discussions in Afghanistan). They agree “to the principle of trying to neutralize Osama bin Laden in order to spare the Taliban regime and allow it to keep its hold on Afghanistan.” There has been no confirmation that this meeting in fact took place, but if it did, its goals were unsuccessful. [Intelligence Online, 10/4/2001] There may have been a similar meeting before 9/11 in the summer of 2001.
September 19, 2001: Pakistani President Musharraf Tells His Country He Still Supports the Taliban, Refuses to Condemn Al-Qaeda
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf gives a speech on Pakistani television in Urdu, the main language of Pakistan. He draws a lengthy analogy between the situation facing Pakistan in the wake of 9/11 and an opportunistic alliance the Prophet Mohammed made to defeat his enemies. This message is widely interpreted in Pakistan as implying that the alliance with the US is only a temporary necessity. He says, “I have done everything for Afghanistan and the Taliban when the whole world was against them. We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to them.” These comments are virtually ignored outside Pakistan at the time. [USA Today, 6/24/2003; Los Angeles Times, 9/5/2006] At no point in the speech does he condemn the Taliban or al-Qaeda, or link them to the 9/11 attacks, despite having promised US officials in recent days that he would do just that. He also says that by bending on Afghanistan, he has saved Islamist militancy in Kashmir, the region disputed between Pakistan and India. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 32]
September 21, 2001: US Denies Plans for Afghanistan Regime Change
A secret report to NATO allies says the US privately wants to hear allied views on “post-Taliban Afghanistan after the liberation of the country.” However, the US is publicly claiming it has no intentions to overthrow the Taliban. [Guardian, 9/21/2001] For instance, four days later, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer denies that military actions there are “designed to replace one regime with another.”
[US Department of State, 12/26/2001]
September 27, 2001: ISI Has Connections to Taliban, Drug Trade, CIA
The Sydney Morning Herald discusses the connections between the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI, and the ISI’s long-standing control over the Taliban. Drugs are a big part of their operation: “opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan’s northern tribal belt and adjoining Afghanistan were a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA cooperation. It succeeded in turning some of the Soviet troops into addicts. Heroin sales in Europe and the US, carried out through an elaborate web of deception, transport networks, couriers, and payoffs, offset the cost of the decade-long war in Afghanistan.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/27/2001]
Late September 2001: CIA Learns ISI Is Secretly Advising Taliban to Resist US Invasion
ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed meets with top Taliban leader Mullah Omar on September 17-18, 2001, and again on September 28. He is supposed to encourage the Taliban to extradite Osama bin Laden or face immediate US attack, but in fact he encourages the Taliban to fight and resist the upcoming US invasion (see Mid-September-October 7, 2001). He is also in regular communication with Omar and other Taliban leaders, and gives them advice on how to resist the US invasion (see Mid-September-October 7, 2001). The CIA quickly learns of Mahmood’s double dealing, and informs Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf replaces Mahmood on October 7 (see October 7, 2001). But despite the ISI’s obvious double dealing, the CIA continues to heavily rely on the ISI for its intelligence about the Taliban (see November 3, 2001). [Rashid, 2008, pp. 77]
Late September-November 2001: Pakistani ISI Aids Taliban Against US, While Simultaneously Supposedly Helping US Fight Taliban
The ISI secretly assists the Taliban in its defense against a US-led attack. The ISI advises Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that the Taliban will hold out against the US invasion until the spring of 2002 at least, and then will be able to hold out through a guerrilla war. Encouraged, Musharraf allows the ISI to continue to supply the Taliban on a daily basis. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid will later explain, “The ISI justified its actions as stemming from fear of an Indian controlled Northern Alliance government after the overthrow of the Taliban. It also did not want to totally abandon the Taliban, its only proxy in Afghanistan. At the same time, the [Pakistani] army wanted to keep the Americans engaged, fearing that once Kabul had fallen, they would once again desert the region. With one hand Musharraf played at helping the war against terrorism, while with the other he continued to deal with the Taliban.”
ISI Supplies and Advisers – Fuel tankers and supply trucks cross the border so frequently that one border crossing in the Pakistani province of Balochistan is closed to all regular traffic so ISI supplies can continue to the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar with little notice. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 77-78] Between three and five ISI officers give military advice to the Taliban in late September. [Daily Telegraph, 10/10/2001] At least five key ISI operatives help the Taliban prepare defenses in Kandahar, yet none are punished for their activities. [Time, 5/6/2002] Secret advisers begin to withdraw in early October, but some stay on into November. [Knight Ridder, 11/3/2001] Large convoys of rifles, ammunition, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers for Taliban fighters cross the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan on October 8 and 12, just after US bombing of Afghanistan begins and after a supposed crackdown on ISI fundamentalists. The Pakistani ISI secretly gives safe passage to these convoys, despite having promised the US in September that such assistance would immediately stop. [New York Times, 12/8/2001]
US Aware of ISI Double Dealing – Rashid will later comment, “Thus, even as some ISI officers were helping US officers locate Taliban targets for US bombers, other ISI officers were pumping in fresh armaments for the Taliban.” On the Afghan side of the border with Pakistan, Northern Alliance operatives keep track of the ISI trucks crossing the border, and keep the CIA informed about the ISI aid. Gary Berntsen, one of the first CIA operatives to arrive in Afghanistan, will later say, “I assumed from the beginning of the conflict that ISI advisers were supporting the Taliban with expertise and material and, no doubt, sending a steady stream of intelligence back to [Pakistan].” [Rashid, 2008, pp. 77-78]
Taliban Collapses as ISI Aid Slows – Secret ISI convoys of weapons and other supplies continue into November. [United Press International, 11/1/2001; Time, 5/6/2002] An anonymous Western diplomat will later state, “We did not fully understand the significance of Pakistan’s role in propping up the Taliban until their guys withdrew and things went to hell fast for the Talibs.” [New York Times, 12/8/2001]
October 2001: US Military Downplays Importance of Targeting Bin Laden
On October 8, 2001, Gen. Tommy Franks, Central Command commander in chief, says of the war in Afghanistan, “We have not said that Osama bin Laden is a target of this effort. What we are about is the destruction of the al-Qaeda network, as well as the… Taliban that provide harbor to bin Laden and al-Qaeda.” [USA Today, 10/8/2001] Later in the month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld makes similar comments, “My attitude is that if [bin Laden] were gone tomorrow, the same problem would exist. He’s got a whole bunch of lieutenants who have been trained and they’ve got bank accounts all over some 50 or 60 countries. Would you want to stop him? Sure. Do we want to stop the rest of his lieutenants? You bet. But I don’t get up in the morning and say that is the end; the goal and the endpoint of this thing. I think that would be a big mistake.” [USA Today, 10/24/2001] One military expert will later note, “There appears to be a real disconnect between what the US military was engaged in trying to do during the battle for Tora Bora – which was to destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban – and the earlier rhetoric of President Bush, which had focused on getting bin Laden.” [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002] Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers will make a similar comment in April 2002 (see April 4, 2002). [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002]
Early October 2001: ISI Director Prevents Key Taliban Leader from Defecting
Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed is supposedly helping the US defeat the Taliban (see September 13-15, 2001) while secretly helping the Taliban resist the US (see September 17-18 and 28, 2001 and Mid-September-October 7, 2001). Jalaluddin Haqqani is a Taliban leader close to bin Laden who controls the Khost region of eastern Afghanistan where most of bin Laden’s training camps and supporters are. Journalist Kathy Gannon will later note, “Had he wanted to, Haqqani could have handed the United States the entire al-Qaeda network.” [Gannon, 2005, pp. 94] He also has extensive ties with the ISI, and was a direct CIA asset in the 1980s (see (1987)). Journalist Steve Coll will later say, “There was always a question about whether Haqqani was really Taliban, because he hadn’t come out of Kandahar; he wasn’t part of the core group. And it was quite reasonable to believe after 9/11 that maybe he could be flipped.… [US officials] summoned him to Pakistan, and they had a series of meetings with him, the content of which is unknown.” [PBS Frontline, 10/3/2006] In early October 2001, Haqqani makes a secret trip to Pakistan and meets with Mahmood. Mahmood advises him to hold out and not defect, saying that he will have help. Haqqani stays with the Taliban and will continue to fight against the US long after the Taliban loses power. [Gannon, 2005, pp. 94]
Early October-Mid-November, 2001: US Air Force Is Repeatedly Denied Permission to Bomb Top Al-Qaeda and Taliban Leaders
In mid-November 2001, the Washington Post will report that senior Air Force officials are upset they have missed opportunities to hit top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders since the start of the bombing of Afghanistan. According to these officials, the Air Force believes it has the leaders in its crosshairs as many as ten times, but they are unable to receive a timely clearance to fire. Cumbersome approval procedures, a concern not to kill civilians, and a power play between the Defense Department and the CIA contribute to the delays. One anonymous Air Force official later says, “We knew we had some of the big boys. The process is so slow that by the time we got the clearances, and everybody had put in their 2 cents, we called it off.” The main problem is that commanders in the region have to ask for permission from General Tommy Franks, based in Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, or even Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other higher-ups. Air Force generals complain to Franks about the delay problem, but never receive a response. For example, at one point in October, a Taliban military convoy is moving north to reinforce front line positions. Targeters consider it an easy mark of clear military value. But permission from Central Command is denied on the suspicion that the target is so obvious that “it might be a trick.” In another example, a target is positively identified by real-time imagery from a Predator drone, but Central Command overrides the decision to strike, saying they want a second source of data. An anonymous official calls this request for independent verification of Predator imagery “kind of ridiculous.” [Washington Post, 11/18/2001] The London Times paraphrase officials who claim that, “Attempts to limit collateral damage [serve] merely to prolong the war, and force the Pentagon to insert commandos on the ground to hunt down the same targets.” [London Times, 11/19/2001] By the end of the war, only one top al-Qaeda leader, Mohammed Atef, is killed in a bombing raid (see November 15, 2001), and no top Taliban leaders are killed.
