Truemors
Opinion
Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor
There had been rumblings, rumour and innuendo over Pakistani Army troops playing both sides in the Afghan conflict, as well as Pakistan hiding Bin Laden, certainly if these statements ring true, it will certainly be the downfall of the Pakistani Government if they are found complicit as our Ally.
By ALEXANDER PANETTA, THE CANADIAN PRESSKANDAHAR -- A former Taliban fighter has provided a gripping first-hand account of being secretly trained by members of the Pakistani military, paid $500 a month and ordered to kill foreigners in Afghanistan.
Mullah Mohammed Zaher offered a vivid description of a bomb-making apprenticeship at a Pakistani army compound where he says he learned to blow up NATO convoys.
He's one of three former Taliban fighters introduced to The Canadian Press by an Afghan government agency that works at getting rebels to renounce the insurgency.
Zaher insists he was neither forced to go public with his story nor coached by Afghan officials, whose routine response to terrorism on their soil is to blame their neighbour, Pakistan.
Pakistan vigorously denies accusations that it is a two-faced participant in the war on terror. A report produced for the Pentagon and released this month by the Rand Corp., a U.S. think-tank, claims individuals in the Pakistani government are involved in helping the insurgents.
Zaher, an illiterate career warrior, has not seen the report. But he made a series of claims in an interview that supported its conclusions.
He described how men in khaki army fatigues housed, fed, paid and finally threatened insurgents into carrying out attacks on foreign troops. Perhaps most startling was his description of the repeated warning from Pakistani soldiers about where trainees would end up if they refused to fight: Guantanamo Bay.
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