Pakistan leaks may hinder bin Laden hunt

Even with this checkered past, US intelligence agents have worked closely with Pakistani intelligence counterparts in the hunt for Al Qaeda. According to ISI officials at a remarkable press conference Monday night - the first ever briefing for foreign reporters - ISI officials gave details of their cooperation with US intelligence agencies.

FBI technicians, for instance, have used sophisticated wire-tapping equipment to trace top Al Qaeda suspects. ISI agents used this FBI information to conduct raids. Despite this close coordination, Pakistani officials have hotly denied that US agents were present during the raids on Al Qaeda hideouts, in part because of the intense public fears that Pakistan is losing its sovereignty to American interests.

In addition to revealing evidence that Mr. bin Laden is probably still alive, ISI officials admitted that Pakistan's ties to extremist groups lingered for some time after Mr. Musharraf's announcement of full support for America's war on Al Qaeda.

"Religious, ethnic, and institutional ties between the Taliban and Pakistan in the majority mind-set militated against any quick divorce," said the head of ISI's counterterrorism cell, who like other ISI officials refused to give his name. As such, the official said, Pakistan began a "phased program to curb extremism." Pakistan says it began this program in the spring of 2001, months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We feel that we have not been getting our dues," one ISI official told journalists. "Instead, we have been getting flak, particularly from the Western media. We hope this meeting will clear [things] up."

Pakistani observers say it will take more than a good housecleaning, however. Two decades of support for radical Islamist movements have filled up the Pakistani military and the ISI with likeminded soldiers, many of whom are just now reaching positions of rank and power. State support for militant Islamist causes have increased the power of radical Islamic parties, which managed to win unprecedented control of two crucial states along the Afghan- Pakistani border.

The fact that Mr. Mohammed was arrested in the home of an activist of Jamaat-i Islami, the nation's largest religious party, has led some Pakistanis to believe that Al Qaeda fugitives are receiving help from high levels.

It is this new Islamist nexus in the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan that some analysts say could keep radical Islamist causes alive, and could provide a haven for Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives, including bin Laden. It could also provide political cover for individual ISI agents who have Al Qaeda sympathies.

"I don't think we have two ISI's, one that's pro-Musharraf and one that's pro-Al Qaeda," says Afzal Naizi, columnist for the Nation, a leading Pakistani newspaper. "I think we have lots of little fragments, each of which has its own agenda. You don't know if the guy is on the right side or not."

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