Former ISI Chief says he is 100 percent sure Karachi attack was
US operation

The former head of Pakistan's ISI, Hamid Gul, tells Channel 4 News that he is "100 per cent sure" a Taliban attack on a major naval air base in Karachi was an "American operation".


The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for a major assault on the headquarters of the naval air force in Karachi that killed at least thirteen officials and injured 14 others.

Eleven navy officers and two paramilitary rangers died in the attack at the PNS Mehran base in Karachi after 16 hours of intense fighting, involving 130 Pakistani commandos.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said just six militants were believed to be involved in the attack, destroying or damaging two aircraft and laying siege to a main building in one of the most heavily-guarded bases in the unstable, nuclear-armed country.

Eight major blasts were reported throughout the night as fighting intensified.

The Pakistani Taliban said the attack was "to avenge al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's killing on 23 May".

"It was the revenge of martyrdom of Osama bin Laden. It was the proof that we are still united and powerful," Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told reporters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

But General Hamid Gul, a retired three-star general who headed the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) from 1987-1989 and has been criticised by the US for his links with the Taliban, told Channel 4 News "there is absolutely no doubt that this was a US operation."

He insisted: "The Karachi incident was clearly an operation by special forces, it must have taken months to plan, and the level of intelligence gathered is far too sophisticated for it to have been a raid by al-Qaeda or the Taliban," he said.

"The reconnaissance and the surveillance to target three or four planes is far too advanced."

Gul, who served as director general of the ISI when President Zardari's late wife Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister, said instability in Pakistan is: "the price for American friendship".

"There have been betrayals by Americans in the past, and there will be betrayals by Americans in the future. Absolutely they want to destabilize Pakistan because they want joint custody of nukes, to consolidate their position in the region, so a Karachi naval blockade is a natural move."

The US State Department was contacted by Channel 4 News for a comment, but has not yet responded to the request.

Source: US Operation