WASHINGTON: Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI has connections with terrorist groups and runs its own foreign policy, a top US general said on Tuesday.
Pakistan has denied the US's accusation, which could probably be the strongest condemnation of the support that the Pakistan's spy agency makes available to terrorist groups.
India and Afghanistan have also been time and again charging their neighbor Pakistan with similar accusations.
"I think it's obvious to me that the ISI has strong connections with terrorist groups," General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told members of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a Congressional earshot. He was answering to a question from Senator Joe Donnelly.
The top American general was joined by his defense secretary Jim Mattis in slamming the ISI.
"We have seen havens left to the terrorists' own devices. We have seen the government of Pakistan come down on terrorism, while ISI appears to run its own foreign policy," Mattis said acknowledging for the first time in public domain that ISI runs its own policy and does not seem to be controlled by the centralized government.
The tough statements on ISI and Pakistan from top rank officials of the Trump Administration group came hours before the Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif landed in Washington on a three-day visit. Asif is scheduled to congregate the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the National Security Adviser H R McMaster and address the think-tank community at the US Institute of Peace.
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