Pakistan Still Playing Both Sides In Afghanistan

The Washington Post has reported that Pakistan's ISI (its intelligence service) has managed to provide medical assistance to Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban that controlled Afghanistan and gave shelter to Osama bin Laden before 9/11. Of course, the Pakistani government and the ISI deny the report:

Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was treated in hospital with the help of Pakistan's intelligence agency after suffering a heart attack earlier this month, the Washington Post reported.

Citing "The Eclipse Group," a private network run by ex-CIA, State Department and military officials, the newspaper said the elusive Taliban chief spent several days at a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.

Most of the senior members of the Afghan Taliban, including Mullah Omar, fled to neighboring Pakistan when U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled their strict Islamist regime in late 2001.

'Some brain damage'
The firm said its source was a doctor, who was not identified. According to the report, Mullah Omar was "rushed" to hospital by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency on Jan. 7.

"While I was not personally in the operating theater, my evaluation based on what I have heard and seeing the patient in the hospital is that Mullah Omar had a cardiac catheter complication resulting in either bleeding or a small cerebral vascular incident, or both," the Post quoted the doctor as saying.

"After the operation, there seemed to be some brain damage with Mullah Omar having slurred speech," he added.

The Eclipse Group's report said that "after 3-4 days of post-operative care in the hospital, he was released to the ISI and ordered to take absolute bed rest when at home for at least several days."

It said that Mullah Omar was staying at "an ISI 'guest house' in Karachi under ISI guard."

Pakistan continues to play the US for foreign assistance and military aid despite continuing to provide safe havens for al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. They utilize the frontier provinces with impunity and carry out attacks inside Afghanistan and repeatedly threaten US and ISAF supply lines inside Pakistan.