Perhaps the single most damming collection of data in a massive trove of secret documents from Afghanistan released by the website WikiLeaks is some 180 files that seem to show Pakistan's premiere intelligence service, the ISI, helping the Afghan insurgency attack American troops.
The United States provides more than a billion dollars to Pakistan each year for help in fighting terrorism, but the papers seem to link the ISI with major Afghan insurgent commanders; claim its representatives meet directly with the Taliban; accuse the agency of training suicide bombers; and indicts Pakistani intelligence officials on hatching up sensational ways to assassinate Afghan president Hamid Karzai and even poison the beer drunk by Americans in Afghanistan.
The United States has long been wary of the ISI's role in the Afghan war, and has occasionally accused the ISI of fomenting violence in Afghanistan, especially against Indian targets. And so in some ways, the allegations are not new. But taken as a whole, the documents present a far greater insight into exactly how the American military and Afghan intelligence see the ISI meddling inside Afghanistan than has ever been revealed.
