Pakistan spy agency lists America as greatest enemy and 'maintains relations just to extract billions in aid'

by DOMINIC DI-NATALE September 10, 2012

Pakistan's powerful spy agency regards America as its "worst enemy," and the government's claims that it is cooperating with the US are a sham to extract billions of dollars in American aid, according to the CIA informant jailed for his role in hunting down Usama bin Laden.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Shakil Afridi, the medical doctor who helped pinpoint bin Laden's Abbottabad compound before last year's raid by SEAL Team 6, described brutal torture at the hands of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, and said the agency is openly hostile to the U.S.

"They said ‘The Americans are our worst enemies, worse than the Indians,'" Afridi, who spoke from inside Peshawar Central Jail, said as he recalled the brutal interrogation and torture he suffered after he was initially detained.

"I tried to argue that America was Pakistan's biggest supporter ... but all they said was, ‘These are our worst enemies. You helped our enemies.'"

- Dr. Shakil Afridi, imprisoned in Pakistan

The ISI, Afridi said, helps fund the Haqqani network, the North Waziristan-based militant group that was last week designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The agency also works against the U.S. by preventing the CIA from interrogating militants captured by Pakistan, who are routinely released to return to Afghanistan to continue attacks on NATO forces there.

"It is now indisputable that militancy in Pakistan is supported by the ISI [...] Pakistan's fight against militancy is bogus. It's just to extract money from America," Afridi said, referring to the $23 billion Pakistan has received largely in military aid since 9/11.

Afridi gave unprecedented insight into activity inside the infamous basement prison where he was initially held beneath the ISI's headquarters at Apbara, in the capital Islamabad. He described how during his own interrogation, in which he was tortured with cigarette burns and electric shocks, ISI officers attacked him for assisting the U.S. Afridi helped pinpoint Bin Laden's compound in the weeks before the May 2, 2011, raid in Abbottabad.

He described a regime of perpetual torture and interrogation for large numbers of detainees, some of whom include radicalized white Western male converts to Islam who had been apprehended while traveling to Afghanistan to fight NATO troops or to be trained in militant camps in the region's tribal belt.

One of the officers who interrogated him had also escorted an American official visiting from Washington to an interview with a highly sought militant Abdul Karim Agha, in November 2011.

Agha had told him afterward that an ISI officer had whispered instructions in his ear as he walked into the interrogation room to feign sudden illness so he could not be interviewed.

"They said to him, ‘You tell this person ‘I am very sick, I cannot talk today,'" he related. "The American official protested, saying he'd only been given a week to stay in Pakistan with the expectation of interrogating him two or three times. But the ISI told him that the interrogation was postponed for three weeks, and so he had to leave.

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