Admiral Mike Mullen

Islamabad, April 20 (Reuters): The top US military officer accused the ISI of maintaining ties to militants targeting US troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, during a trip to Islamabad today.

The comments by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, were not the first by US officials pointing the finger at ISI elements and their alleged links to the Haqqani network.

But his forceful, and repeated remarks to Pakistani media about those ties, suggest Washington is not about to back away from calls for Pakistan to take a more assertive stand against Haqqani — even as the US seeks to mend diplomatic ties with Islamabad.

US-Pakistan ties have been strained this year by the case of a CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore on January 27, as well as by tensions in Pakistan over US drone strikes that have fanned anti-American sentiment.

“It’s fairly well known that the ISI has a longstanding relationship with the Haqqani network,” Mullen told Pakistan’s daily Dawn newspaper, one of three interviews he held.

“Haqqani is supporting, funding, training fighters that are killing Americans and killing coalition partners. And I have a sacred obligation to do all I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“So that’s at the core — it’s not the only thing — but that’s at the core that I think is the most difficult part of the relationship,” said Mullen, ahead of talks with Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani.

The ISI has long been suspected of maintaining ties to the Haqqani network, cultivated during the 1980s when Jalaluddin Haqqani was a feared battlefield commander against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. A senior Pakistani intelligence official rejected any suggestion of collusion.

“I don’t know what kind of relationship he’s talking about. If he means we’re providing them with protection, with help, that’s not correct,” he said. “Even if you are enemies, you have a relationship.”

He said Pakistan had attacked Haqqani’s positions and raided his mosques in the past. “Right now, we are not attacking him because we are fully engaged against another group, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),” he said.

Pakistan has been criticised in the past for distinguishing between “good” Taliban militants and “bad” ones, with the Haqqani network falling squarely into the former category.

While based in Pakistan’s wild North Waziristan area on the Afghan border, Haqqani refrains from attacking the Pakistani state and is seen as a way to maintain Pakistani influence in any future political settlement in Afghanistan.

The TTP, on the other hand, is a declared enemy of the Pakistani state and has been at war with its army since 2007. Mullen acknowledged the US-Pakistan relationship had endured a turbulent period because of the Davis case.