July 6, 2011 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a strongly worded statement, U.S. General [Ret.] Jack Keane is claiming that both Pakistan's army as well as its notorious intelligence service, the ISI, are aiding the country's Islamists, working with them to plan and carry out lethal attacks against U.S. servicemen stationed in Afghanistan.

"The truth is, the ISI aids and abets the sanctuaries in Pakistan that the Afghan operate out of. They provide training for them, they provide resources for them and they provide intelligence for them. From those sanctuaries, every single day Afghan fighters come into Afghanistan and kill and maim us...There's a direct relationship of ISI's complicity and the deaths of American soldiers and the catastrophic wounding of those soldiers. The chief of staff of the Pakistani military is complicit. He used to be the director of ISI. He put the guy in there who is in charge now and he has full knowledge of what I'm just describing," [see Times of India, ISI aids and abets terrorist sanctuaries in Pak: Ex-US general, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-07 01/pakistan/29725816_1_pakistan-spy-agency-pakistan-army-nuclear-arsenal]

In recent days the ISI has come under a withering attack from Western media over the murder of 40 year old Pakistani journalist Saleem Shazhad under the belief that the killing was a hit ordered by the ISI.

That speculation was strengthened by a NY Times piece [see, Pakistan's Spies Tied to Slaying of a Journalist http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/world/asia/05pakistan.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=brutal%20death%20of%20journalist%20Saleem%20Shahzad&st=cse] which relied upon off the record statements by two U.S. officials that there is near incontrovertible proof of the connection between Pakistan's besieged intelligence service and the reporter's brutal killing - over a dozen blunt trauma injuries, a ruptured liver and broken ribs.

Among those wading in on the issue was Senator John McCain [R-AZ] who charged that the ISI is working with the terrorist Haqqani Network, "We are going to have a realistic assessment of the true assessment in Pakistan, because there's no doubt that there is connections between ISI and the Haqqani Network who are responsible not only for the hotel tragedy there, but also for the attacks on Americans and our allies." [see, Economic Times of India, There is connection between ISI and Haqqani network: McCain http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-07-04/news/29736080_1_haqqani-network-pakistan-s-isi-connections]

A year ago, the Haqqani Network was added to the U.S.' designated foreign terrorist organization list. It closely works with both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and is believed to be headquartered in Waziristan, an historically ungovernable Pakistani territory located in the North-West sector of the country.

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