Pak’s ISI complicit with terrorists, says US ex-NSA

Adds Trump was clear on suspending aid to Pakistan until it halted support for terrorists that were killing Afghans, Americans

There is an “undeniable complicity” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with terrorist groups, former US National Security Advisor Lt Gen (retd) HR McMaster has said, revealing that during his tenure under then-President Donald Trump, the White House faced resistance from the state department and Pentagon over providing security aid to Islamabad.

Despite directions from Trump to stop all aid to Pakistan till it stops giving safe havens to terrorists, McMaster in his latest book—At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House—says that the then Defence Secretary Jim Mattis was planning to deliver a military aid package to Islamabad that included over $150 million worth of armoured vehicles. However, the aid was stopped after his intervention, McMaster writes in the book that hit the bookstores this week.

“It was difficult to get State and Defence even to comply with Trump’s directives to stop certain activities. I discovered that contrary to the South Asia strategy, which called for the suspension of all aid to Pakistan with a few exceptions, when Mattis visited Islamabad in the coming weeks, the Pentagon was going to deliver a military aid package that included more than $150 million worth of armoured vehicles,” he writes.

McMaster says soon after he came to know about it, he called for a meeting with Mattis, the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel, and other senior officials. “I started by noting that the President (Trump) had been very clear on multiple occasions to suspend aid to the Pakistanis until they halted support for terrorist organisations that were killing Afghans, Americans, and coalition members in Afghanistan...We had all heard Trump say, ‘I do not want any money going to Pakistan’,” he says.

Mattis, the former NSA writes, noted the possibility that Pakistan might retaliate in certain ways, but others, including Ambassador David Hale, who had joined by video from Islamabad, did not share those concerns.

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