Quasim Nauman and Zeeshan Haider have a story on Reuters, where they quote Ahmed Shuja Pasha as saying:
Would Jalalludin Haqqani have come to anything without the ISI? I was reminded of the phrase above, when I saw the following fragment from Peter Tomsen's fabulous book, The Wars of Afghanistan:We have never paid a penny or provided even a single bullet to the Haqqani network.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Assef Ali and ISI Director General Nasim Rana took Pakistan's message on noninterference in Afghanistan to Washington in February 1996, prior to a massive Taliban offensive from Pakistani soil planned for the summer. In a February 9 meeting with Acting Secretary of State Strobe Talbott at the State Department, Foreign Minister Assef ``categorically denied'' that Pakistan was giving military assistance to the Taliban. ... ISI Director General Rana asserted that ``not one bullet'' had been provided to the Taliban by Pakistan.and:
During the 199s and down to the present, Pakistan's military and civilian leaders became highly skilled at denying Pakistan's covert empowerment of its unholy alliance partners inside Afghanistan and in Pakistan -- in other words, lying.
'Pakistan Denies' seems like a standard news headline phrase these days :-)
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