Afghanistan – Researched and compiled by the Refugee Documentation Centre of Ireland on 23 January 2014 Information on the Taliban and activities and relations with Pakistan. Information on Taliban tortures. Information on the Taliban relations with Pakistan. A document released through the US National Security Archive states: “A collection of newly-declassified documents published today detail U.S. concern over Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban during the seven-year period leading up to 9-11. This new release comes just days after Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, acknowledged that, "There is no doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil." While Musharraf admitted the Taliban were being sheltered in the lawless frontier border regions, the declassified U.S. documents released today clearly illustrate that the Taliban was directly funded, armed and advised by Islamabad itself.” (National Security Archive (14 August 2007) Pakistan: "The Taliban's Godfather"?) A Human Rights Watch report published in 2001, in a section titled “Pakistan’s Support of the Taliban”, states: “The Pakistan government has repeatedly denied that it provides any military support to the Taliban in its diplomacy regarding its extensive operations in Afghanistan.82 Of all the foreign powers involved in efforts to sustain and manipulate the ongoing fighting, Pakistan is distinguished both by the sweep of its objectives and the scale of its efforts, which include soliciting funding for the Taliban, bankrolling Taliban operations, providing diplomatic support as the Taliban’s virtual emissaries abroad, arranging training for Taliban fighters, recruiting skilled and unskilled manpower to serve in Taliban armies, planning and directing offensives, providing and facilitating shipments of ammunition and fuel, and on several occasions apparently directly providing combat support.” (Human Rights Watch (July 2001) Crisis of Impunity: The Role of Pakistan, Russia, and Iran in Fueling the Civil War, p.23) A EurasiaNet article states: “Things are different in Pakistan, however. There, the Taliban have been strategically tolerated for years. In his recent assessment, Gen. McChrystal noted that the insurgency in Afghanistan is "clearly supported from Pakistan. Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan, are linked with al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups, and are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI [intelligence services]." The frequent peace deals that Pakistan signed with various local Taliban groups between 2004 and 2008 offers several examples of accommodating the Taliban. Senior Pakistani officials termed those deals as 'a local solution to a local problem.' In February 2009, for instance, Pakistan and the Taliban 1 entered into a peace agreement in the Swat Valley. But the United States, NATO, and Afghanistan strongly objected to it. Officials in Kabul believed the peace deal would enable the Taliban and al Qaeda to rest and reequip in order to carry out new operations in Afghanistan. As expected, security did begin deteriorating in both countries, soon after the February peace deal. So far, Pakistan's sweeping military operations to retake the lost ground from the Taliban have helped precipitate a humanitarian crisis, featuring the large- scale displacement of civilians in the North-West Frontier Province. This has alienated the border region's most impoverished tribes, among whom al Qaeda has heavily recruited desperate and illiterate youth to carry out suicide attacks in Afghanistan. At the same time, Pakistan's conventional operations have proven inept against an unconventional, elusive enemy. These operations have either displaced Taliban fighters to new areas in Pakistan or pushed them over into Afghanistan.” (EurasiaNet (13 October 2009) Afghanistan: Rethinking the Af-Pak Strategy) A submission to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, in a section titled “Disagregrating Pakistan's Militant Market”, states: “Afghan Taliban: While the Afghan Taliban operate in Afghanistan, they enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK, formerly known as the Northwest Frontier Province), and key cities in the Pakistani heartland (e.g. Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta). The Afghan Taliban emerged from Deobandi madaris (p. madrassah) in Pakistan and retain their nearly exclusive ethnic Pasthun and Deobandi sectarian orientation.” (US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (24 May 2011) Al Qaeda, the Taliban & Other Extremist Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Excerpt: Lashkar-e- Taiba beyond Bin Laden: Enduring Challenges for the Region and the International Community)) A Voice of America News report states: “A leaked report allegedly authored by officials in the international coalition in Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of secretly assisting the Taliban. According to the report seen by The Times newspaper and British Broadcasting Corporation, Pakistan's military spy agency, the ISI, is supporting the Afghan Taliban, and the insurgents believe victory is inevitable once NATO troops leave in 2014. The classified document reportedly was compiled from information learned in the interrogations of 4,000 captured Taliban and al- Qaida operatives.” (Voice of America News (1 February 2012) Leaked NATO Report: Pakistan Helping Afghan Taliban) The Summary of a document published by the UK Parliament House of Commons Library, in a paragraph headed “Will Pakistan's political and security establishment deliver?”, states: "Large parts of the Pakistani establishment remain hostile to the very concept of 'AfPak', feeling unfairly stigmatised by it. They believe that the crisis in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and beyond results from what is happening in Afghanistan, rather than the other way around. Many also question whether Pakistan's political and security establishment can genuinely be persuaded to cease 'hedging its bets' through supporting the Afghan Taliban when it remains so anxious about growing Indian influence in 2 Afghanistan. Moves earlier this year against important Afghan Taliban figures may have helped to strengthen the standing of the Pakistan Government in some quarters, but many believe that the wave of detentions was primarily intended to demonstrate Pakistan's essential role in future peace negotiations at a moment when it feared being by-passed. The establishment's attitude towards the Pakistan Taliban and other militant groups has undoubtedly hardened in recent years, but still not to the point where it has decided that the price of a 'war to the finish' is one worth paying. Delivering a 'knock-out blow' is likely to prove beyond the Pakistani military, which has long been geared up mainly to fight an inter-state war with India. The current Pakistan Government, led by President Asif Zardari, is, like its Afghan counterpart, weak and beleaguered. Finally, while Pakistani public opinion appears to have shifted in favour of more assertive action against the country's home- grown militants, it is fickle. There is a deep strain of anti-Americanism that could easily trump other considerations again.” (UK Parliament House of Commons Library (22 June 2010) The 'AfPak policy' and the Pashtuns) In a section titled “Prospects” (section 5.2, paragraph headed “Will Pakistan's political and security establishment deliver?”), states: “There also remain unanswered questions about the attitude of the Pakistani political and security establishment. Doubts remain about the motivation behind the wave of detentions of senior Afghan Taliban figures that took place earlier this year, some of whom were soon released, with some arguing that it was to demonstrate Pakistan's essential role in future peace negotiations and avert danger of being by-passed as a mediator in favour of Saudi Arabia, as briefly seemed on the cards. Richard Holbrooke has declared himself ‘agnostic’ about whether the detentions meant that Pakistan had broken decisively with the Afghan Taliban. US officials have been reported as saying that the arrest of Mullah Baradar in February had been accidental’ and US officials have had limited access to him. There have even been claims in Pakistan that Baradar is a CIA agent. Few expect Afghanistan's extradition request to be acceded to. Former UN envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has accused the Pakistani authorities of acting as 'spoilers' of the negotiations which he and, separately, the Afghan Government had begun with the Afghan Taliban in 2009. Another analyst has claimed that the Pakistani security services are now establishing a more reliable (from their point of view) Afghan Taliban leadership but one less inclined towards negotiations. A recent report claimed that observers continue to underestimate the degree to which the Pakistani political and security establishment is still providing support to the Afghan Taliban and that a number of members of the Quetta Shura are ISI representatives.” (ibid) A Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report states: “A former Afghan official says pressure is mounting on Pakistan to end its support for extremist groups who were reportedly involved in last week's assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reports. Ali Ahmad Jalali, an Afghan-American professor at the United States National Defense University in Washington, told RFE/RL on September 23 that recent comments by Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S.