- NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S.-approved
evacuation of Pakistani military officers and intelligence advisers during
the siege of Kunduz last November "slipped out of control'' and a
number of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters joined the exodus, according to
a report in The New Yorker magazine.
-
- Citing unnamed U.S. intelligence officials and high-ranking
military officers, New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh reported that the Pakistanis
were flown to safety in nighttime airlifts approved by the Bush Administration
to help Pakistan leader General Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally, avoid
political disaster.
-
- "What was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently
slipped out of control and as an unintended consequence, an unknown number
of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters managed to join the exodus,'' wrote Hersh.
-
- "Dirt got through the screen,'' an unnamed senior
intelligence official was quoted as saying.
-
- The Pakistanis, the staunchest supporters of the Taliban
in the long-running war against the Northern Alliance that preceded the
U.S.-led action in Afghanistan, were trapped in Kunduz, the Taliban's last
northern stronghold in Afghanistan.
-
- The article quoted an unnamed senior American defense
adviser as saying the airlift got out of hand.
-
- "Everyone brought their friends with them,'' he
was quoted as saying, referring to Afghans who had been trained or used
to run intelligence operations for the Pakistanis. "You're not going
to leave them behind to get their throats cut.''
-
- Rescue flights from Kunduz to the northwest corner of
Pakistan, some 200 miles away, were made through a special air corridor
ordered by the U.S. Central Command, according to an unnamed Central Intelligence
Agency official.
-
- Indian intelligence officials told Hersh that as many
as five thousand people may have been evacuated to Pakistan, but U.S. intelligence
put the figure much lower, the story said.
-
- American and Pakistani officials have refused to confirm
the reports and on Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied it.
-
- "I do not believe it happened,'' Rumsfeld told NBC's
"Meet the Press'' program. "No one that I know, in -- connected
with the United States in any way, saw any such thing as a major air exodus
out of Afghanistan into Pakistan.
-
- "I have read these stories, I've heard these stories.
I've never able to run them down. No one has ever been able to run them
down and prove them. And I doubt them; I think they're not true,'' Rumsfeld
said.
|
