Pak good at playing games with others’

Washington: Pakistan has been playing “games” with the US at least when it comes to the war against terrorism, cross-border terrorism and Kashmir, a former top US intelligence officer has said.

Testifying before a Congressional panel on Afghanistan and Pakistan, former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia Paul R Pillar said Pakistan simply shows to the US that it is going against the terrorists, while in reality it is not.

“The Pakistanis are very adept at playing these sorts of games with foreign governments in doing just enough to keep us satisfied,” he said.

“This... has taken place for years with regard to their activity in Kashmir and the cross-border operations,” said Pillar, who is now visiting professor and director of studies, Security Studies Program, Georgetown University.

“To be quite blunt, you know, the Pakistanis have played games with us, in terms of, you know, making perhaps more of a show of going after elements we’re most concerned with in the northwest, which is not to say that they haven’t done real operations and indeed have incurred substantial casualties.”

“But then have brought things to a halt and have reached these various agreements and truces, whether it’s the people in Swat or elsewhere, that have fallen short of our objectives,” Pillar said in response to a question from Chairman of the Sub Committee John Tierney.

He also said there is an “undeniable link” between the banned Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Pakistan Government, which has used it to serve its interests in Kashmir.

“Lashkar-e-Toiba is an Islamist Pakistani group that has gotten, certainly in the past — and there’s a question about how much it still has in the present — cooperation and sponsorship from elements of the Pakistani Government itself, which saw it as a useful tool, particularly with regard to confronting the Indians in Kashmir and keeping an insurgency in Kashmir brewing,” Pillar said.

“Since then — and partly because of the pressure that our Government has placed on the Pakistanis not to do business with this group, which is... a loathsome terrorist group that is appropriately on all of our terrorist lists and it is appropriate for us to place such pressure on the Pakistanis,” he said.

The LeT shares the general ideology in many respects of al-Qaeda, although operationally they have been focused more on Kashmir and now in Pakistan itself, he said.
“The official sponsorship is no longer there. The remaining question is to what degree there may be individuals or elements — particularly in the Pakistani military — that may have some continued relationship with the group,” he added.