Date:08/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/08/stories/2009010860051700.htm

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We feared Indian strike: ISI chief

Islamabad: Ruling out a war with India over the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence chief has said terrorism, not India, is the country’s prime enemy.

Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha also said Pakistan had initially feared an attack from India in a reprisal for the Mumbai attacks.

“We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds. We know full well that terror is our enemy, not India,” the ISI chief told German magazine Der Spiegel in a rare interview.

But, he said as the Mumbai attacks unfolded, Pakistan prepared for a “military reaction” after the tragedy.

“At first we thought there would be a military reaction ... as the Indians, after the attacks, were deeply offended and furious, but they are also clever,” Lt. Gen. Pasha said.

India recently said Pakistan’s state agencies had a hand in the Mumbai attacks, which Islamabad denied.

The ISI, often labelled as a ‘state within a state’, had also been accused of links with radical groups but its chief claimed that his powerful agency was under the control of the recently elected democratic government.

Lt. Gen. Pasha told the magazine that “there will be no war.” “We are distancing ourselves from conflict with India, both now and in general,” he said.

For the first time, the ISI chief said he was willing to travel to New Delhi after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani accepted a request by his Indian counterpart following the November 26 attacks. But the General, without revealing the reasons for not doing so, remarked: “Many people here are simply not ready.”

The ISI is widely believed to have set up the Lashkar-e-Taiba which, New Delhi says, masterminded the Mumbai carnage that left over 180 people, including several foreigners, dead. India has handed over crucial evidence in the shape of taped conversation between the attackers and their handlers based in Pakistan.

But toeing Islamabad’s official line, the General said India failed to provide evidence to back its claims that the ISI-sponsored Pakistani groups were behind the attacks.

“They have given us nothing, no numbers, no connections, no names. This is regrettable.” — PTI