Taliban has 'secret ties' with Pakistan's ISI: Report

Taliban has secret ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) who has open access to the terrorist group's leadership, according to a media report.

The revelations were made by a Taliban terrorist who attended the Qatar peace meeting last month. The terrorist, in a letter to media, said that the ISI has been involved in every step and was the decision-maker of the Taliban's office, reported Afghanistan Times.

"Another issue I have witnessed is that members of the office were spying for ISI against each other. In return for some scholarships and Pakistani ID cards, ISI has appointed the purest people of our frontier as its spy figures," the letter read.

On February 29, the US signed a peace deal with the Taliban in Doha after months of negotiations, aimed at ending the 18-year long war in Afghanistan. The agreement will pave the way for the US to withdraw all its troops from the Asian country within 14 months.

The letter claimed that the peace deal was first supposed to be signed by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, but the ISI replaced him with Baradar as a signatory.

"Amir Khan Mottaqi, who has a great influence on the ISI, is one of the main elements of ISI and is considered as the defender of the ISI. I arrived in Qatar one day before the peace deal was signed. We were on our way to an invitation party when Mullah Baradar received a phone call. I could hear the person on the phone telling him to tell the Qatar officials to invite ISI Generals, Faiz and Hassan to the ceremony," the letter said.

"Baradar then called the office, discussing the invitation of ISI Generals. The conversation lasted until the party began, where Baradar asked the Qatari officials about the invitation of the Generals. But the Qatari officials assured him that it had not been an intelligence meeting but a political meeting and that the presence of Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan Foreign Minister could attend on behalf of other officials from his country," it added.

The Afghan government has long blamed the Taliban as the proxy of the Pakistan deep state.

In 2018, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had alleged that the "centre of Taliban terrorism is in Pakistan" and demanded that authorities in the neighbouring country "show some concrete action to rid their territory of insurgents".