Pakistan’s powerful spy agency may have provided the funding for a
deadly 2009 suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan that ranks as one of
the deadliest days in the agency’s history, according to a newly declassified
State Department cable.
The heavily redacted cable, sent about two weeks after the attack
on Dec. 30, 2009, reports on a meeting between operatives belonging to the
Haqqani network, a highly capable al Qaeda-linked terror group, and
unidentified officers with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. According to
the cable, which was released Wednesday, the ISI was suspected of giving the
Haqqani network $200,000 to “enable” the attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman
in Afghanistan’s Khost province.
The Chapman attack killed seven CIA officers and a Jordanian
intelligence operative. It was carried out by a double agent, a Jordanian named
Hammam Khalil Mohammed, who was invited onto the base to help the agency track
down senior al Qaeda operatives. When he blew himself up during a meeting with
senior CIA officials responsible for hunting al Qaeda, he greatly hindered
Langley’s effort to dismantle the terror network.
While Pakistan’s ISI has a well-known record of supporting
Islamist militant groups, its funding of the Chapman attack remains
unconfirmed. The cable notes that it is an “information report” and “not
finally evaluated intelligence.” The CIA did not answer questions Wednesday about the report’s veracity, or whether stronger intelligence
proves that the ISI funded the Chapman bombing.
The National
Security Archive at George Washington University published the cable, which was
part of a trove of documents received under a Freedom of Information Act
request.
Another State Department cable, also published Wednesday,
reported that leaders of the Haqqani network were suspected of meeting monthly
with the ISI in Islamabad as of late December 2009 — around the time of the
Chapman bombing. The ISI provided the Haqqani network during these meetings
with an “unknown amount of funding” for “unspecified operations,” the cable
reported.
In December 2009, the ISI and Haqqani network met twice, according
to thatcable. During
the first meeting, they “discussed funding for operations” in Khost province.
During the second, ISI provided “direction to the Haqqanis to expedite attack
preparations and lethality in Afghanistan.”
Other documents published by the National Security Archive give new insights into the
Haqqani funding sources.
The ISI has a long history of playing both sides in America’s long war against radical
Islamist groups in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Anticipating
an eventual American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Islamabad has cultivated
close ties with Afghan militants, providing them with funds and arms.
Pakistani intelligence officials believe their relationship with
Afghan militants, such as the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban, provides
Islamabad with a decisive advantage in its contest with India, Pakistan’s
historic enemy, for influence in Afghanistan.
At the same time, Pakistan has accepted billions of dollars in
military and humanitarian aid from the United States after helping Washington
combat Islamist terror groups following the 9/11 terror attacks.
Pakistani armed forces are carrying out an offensive in the country’s tribal areas against the Pakistani
Taliban, which has been responsible for a spate of recent deadly bombings. Just
last month, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban killed more than 70 people in an Easter bombing targeting Christians
celebrating in Lahore.
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