Taliban wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes without Pakistan, says author Gall

Afghanistan Sun (ANI) Friday 3rd February, 2012

The Taliban wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes without Pakistan, senior journalist Sandy Gall well versed with the war in Afghanistan has claimed in his new book "War Against the Taliban".

"The Taliban wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes without Pakistan," The Telegraph quoted Gall, as saying in his book.

"If they didn't have safe havens in Pakistan, where would they go with their wounded? Where would their families go? One (Pakistani) MP recently said to the head of the ISI, 'You could end this war in a month if you wanted to'. I'm sure that is true. Pakistan kept this war going," he added.

Gall, who made repeated visits to Afghanistan during the eighties, trekking through mountainous territory to reach the mujahideen guerillas fighting against Soviet occupation, also cited Pakistan's search for security in the face of its vastly more powerful enemy India as one of the reasons why the Afghan war was drawing to a predictably messy conclusion.

A NATO report leaked this week confirms Pakistani complicity in aiding the Taliban.

Insisting that Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been playing a double game for years, posing as an ally of Western intelligence agencies, Gal said that the Americans are now finally aware of the full extent of their supposed ally's duplicity.

"It all came from the fact that bin Laden had been hiding in Abbottabad. That was a big shock to us and a big shock to a lot of Americans, because obviously the Pakistanis must have known. There are no two ways about it. Kayani (head of the Pakistani army) must have known, and the ISI must have known. My view is that the Americans now have to be very tough with the Pakistanis and say, 'This is just not good enough, we're not going to accept this,'" he added. (ANI)