Many reports in recent months have noted how the Taliban is reportedly getting help from Pakistani intelligence in their battle against the United States. But NBC now has an uncofirmed report that the Taliban is getting help from another area as well: Afghan intelligence:
Afghan intelligence agents are sharing information with militants about U.S. and NATO troop movements, a top Taliban commander told NBC News.
“The people of Afghanistan are with us,” said Sirajuddin Haqqani, in an exclusive interview. “The Afghan intelligence officials are sympathetic to the Taliban and they communicate the movements of the occupying forces [U.S. and NATO] to us.”
There was no way to confirm Haqqani’s claims, but nearly eight years after the attacks of 9/11, the United States has struggled to oust the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies from parts of Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
On March 27, President Barack Obama pledged a fresh infusion of U.S. troops to the region. “If the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged,” Obama said, “that country will again be a base for terrorists.”
This kind of report can be looked at from various viewpoints. Given the widespread agreement that Pakistani intelligence officials have propped up the Taliban for years (even while receiving U.S. aid) it can’t be lightly dismissed. On the other hand, any news person knows that a source often has a motive to open his/her mouth to the press in a now-it-can-be-told revelation. And the motive here could be to nurture tensions and doubts between U.S. and Afghan officialdom. Or…it could be combination of these two..
But could it also be payback for reports such as this one of about a week ago?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.