EXCLUSIVE: Pakistanis say U.S. hoards intelligence

Despite growing success targeting militants in Pakistan’s northwest, the U.S. is refusing to share intelligence with Pakistan about al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders thought to be hiding in the southwest province of Baluchistan, three senior Pakistani officials say.

The officials, two of whom spoke to The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing a sensitive topic, suggested that some of the blame for the long failure to capture Osama bin Laden, former Afghan leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and other members of what is known as the Quetta shura or council lies with the United States.

The “CIA has not shared any actionable intelligence with the Pakistan government on al Qaeda [in Baluchistan] since 2006 and 2007,” a Pakistani defense official said.

The Pakistanis are pushing for more intelligence sharing after a string of terrorist attacks including a weekend strike on Pakistan’s equivalent of the Pentagon, which led to a 22-hour hostage standoff that ended with at least 19 deaths.

A suicide car bomb on Friday killed more than 50 civilians at a crowded market in Peshawar, and an attack on a U.N. office a week ago killed five aid workers.

The Pakistani defense official said that “dated intelligence delivered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Pakistan months ago” that al Qaeda leaders and the Taliban leadership council run by Mullah Omar are in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, is too “flimsy to act on.”

“Now the U.S. intelligence says that [al Qaeda] is holed up in Quetta,” the official said. “Has any U.S. intelligence agency given us any actionable intelligence with Pakistan? No. This is only talk.”

There have been concerns that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency still contains sympathizers with the Afghan Taliban, which the ISI helped create in the 1990s during an Afghan civil war.

In a recent assessment of the Afghanistan war that was leaked to the press, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal noted reports that ties remain between the ISI and the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan denies this.

Asked about the situation in Quetta, Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters and editors at The Times last week that the U.S. must trust Pakistan for the fight against terrorism to succeed.

“If you are working for a common objective, the more you share real-time intelligence, the more effective your operations will be,” he said.

“We consider you to be [a] friend and we want to be friends,” Mr. Qureshi said. “But we want to be equal friends. We want to be friends with a common objective. You’ve got to trust us; only then will we trust you.”

Later, he told the Council on Foreign Relations, “We have no liking for the Quetta shura and what it stands for. … Collectively we can do a better job. … We will have to build a relationship of trust and confidence. If you keep doubting our intentions and we keep doubting your intentions, then where is this partnership going?”

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said the U.S. takes “exception to the notion that information on the Quetta shura hasn’t been shared with the government of Pakistan.”

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of his work, added that “on matters related to terrorism, there is regular information sharing with the Pakistanis at all levels of their government.”

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