4 Threat Matrix: On Wikileaks & the Pakistan memos

Written by Bill Roggio on July 25, 2010 6:21 PM to 4 Threat Matrix

Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2010/07/on_wikileaks_the_pakistan_memo.php

Today Wikileaks published 92,000 classified cables from military, intelligence, and other US officials in the field in Afghanistan. The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel were given access to the documents a month ago and have published reports on the data (for a description on how this came about, see this NYT report).

Of particular interest are the cables on Pakistan's support of the Afghan Taliban and other terror groups. Read the full NYT report on this issue here for an excellent summary.

Longtime readers of The Long War Journal will not be shocked by these reports. For years, Tom Joscelyn and I have been documenting the involvement of the Pakistani military and intelligence services with various terror groups. See Pakistan's Jihad and Analysis: Al Qaeda is the tip of the jihadist spear for summary reports from 2008 and 2009. Also, Hamid Gul has long been known to support the Taliban and al Qaeda. For a summary of the activities of Hamid Gul and others, see US moves to declare former Pakistani officers international terrorists.

Tom and I will have more to come on these and other subjects as we sift through the documents.

On a final note, there is criticism of some of the intelligence reports as some of the information has originated from Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, which has viewed Pakistan as driving the violence in Afghanistan. This is a specious argument. As the NYT points out, there are specific attacks in Afghanistan that can be matched with intelligence reports that were written prior to the time the attacks were executed.