Former ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha has admitted that the deadly Haqqani network was created by it and the US’ CIA and claimed that the insurgent group’s chief Jalaluddin Haqqani had “in fact been invited to the White House by President (Ronald) Reagan”.
According to the damning remarks by Pasha, leaked by Al Jazeera news channel, the country under military ruler Pervez Musharraf and the US had reached a “political’ understanding on the use of the CIA-operated drones targeting Islamist militants, notwithstanding Pakistan’s
public denouncement of American strikes.
“Regarding the so-called Haqqani network, the DG ISI said that it had been created by both the CIA and ISI against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Jalaluddin Haqqani had in fact been invited to the White House by President Reagan,” the Abbottabad Commission’s leaked report said.
Though the year in which Haqqani was invited was not part of the report, Reagan was US President between 1981-89.
Pasha headed ISI at the time of bin laden’s killing by US Navy SEAls in 2011.