2024-09-01 03:11:30
Washington: Former US National Security Advisor Lieutenant General (Retired) H.R. McMaster said that there is no doubt that Pakistan’s intelligence agency ‘Inter-Services Intelligence’ (ISI) is ‘in collusion’ with terrorist groups. McMaster revealed that during the tenure of former President Donald Trump’s administration, the White House had to face opposition from the State Department and the Pentagon over providing security assistance to Islamabad. This revelation has caused a lot of embarrassment to Pakistan.
McMaster said Trump had ordered a halt to all aid to Pakistan until it stopped providing safe havens to terrorists, but then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was still planning to give Islamabad a military aid package that included armored vehicles worth more than $150 million. McMaster made these comments in the book “A War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House”. However, he said the aid was stopped after his intervention.
‘Pakistan is not changing its attitude’
McMaster said, ‘The President (Trump) had clearly said on several occasions that until Pakistan stops helping the terrorist organizations that are killing Afghan, American and coalition forces in Afghanistan, keep the aid to it suspended… We all heard Trump say – I don’t want to give any more money to Pakistan now.’
McMaster wrote, “Pakistan was not changing its attitude. Its government had released Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, on the eve of Mattis’s visit, which was nothing short of a humiliation. After this, a hostage incident in Pakistan revealed the undisputed collusion of Pakistan’s intelligence agency with the terrorists.”