Pakistan intelligence aided in Kabul blast: reports

The US has determined that Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, helped plan the fatal bombing at India's embassy in Kabul last month, US media reported Friday, citing unnamed US officials.

"The Indians are absolutely convinced it's true, and they're right," an unnamed US official told the Wall Street Journal.

The New York Times and the Journal reported that US officials believe the July 7 embassy attack was conducted by forces loyal to Afghan militant Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is tied to Al-Qaeda and based in Pakistan.

On Wednesday, the Times reported that a senior CIA official confronted Pakistani officials this month with evidence of ties between the ISI and Haqqani.

A Pakistani military spokesman called that report "unfounded, baseless and malicious." US officials would not comment on it.

Friday, the Times said intercepted communications had provided "the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region."

Officials also told the paper that the ISI was feeding militants in the tribal areas information about the US military efforts, helping them avoid missile strikes.

The ISI has long been assumed to maintain ties to militant groups it supported during fights against the Soviets and India, while also helping the Americans with the occasional arrest of a top Al-Qaeda figure.

Any rift between the US and Pakistani intelligence agencies reflects deepening US frustration over Islamabad's role in a worsening insurgency in Afghanistan, analysts said Thursday.

"The administration I think has finally come to the conclusion that it needs to have more transparence about what the ISI and the army are up to," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer, referring to the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

"We need to know whose side the army and the ISI really are on," Riedel, who has long experience with Pakistani intelligence, told AFP.

US officials would not specify what kind of assistance the ISI gave to the militants, but told the Times the moves might have been authorized by superiors.

The new intelligence "confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held," one State Department official told the Times of the intercepted communications. "It was sort of this 'aha' moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof."

The Times said that the US has begun to find Pakistan "no longer a fully reliable American partner" and that President George W. Bush on Monday confronted Pakistan's prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, about the divided loyalties of the ISI.

According to the paper, Pakistan's defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told a Pakistani television network that Bush asked Pakistani officials, "Who is in control of ISI?"

On July 9, just after the bombing, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he had seen no evidence that foreign agents were involved in the embassy bombing.

"I haven't seen any evidence or proof that foreign agents were involved," Gates said.