WAR ON TERROR

Economic Times: US released al-Qaeda terrorists to Pak: Report

WASHINGTON: Playing a "losing game", the US allowed many Interservice Intelligence (ISI) agents it had captured during the war on terror in Afghanistan to go back to Pakistan and they took with them thousands of al-Qaeda terrorists, who later spread into Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, media reports said.

After surrounding ISI operatives and "the cream of the crop" of al-Qaeda near Konduz during the early phase of the war, US allowed the ISI to escape, in order to prop up Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed on the Public Broadcasting System network in the weekend.

By letting them go, "the US is playing a losing game, because Musharraf is certainly much more interested in his own survival than ours," Hersh said.

He added that the US military allowed 3,000 to 4,000, perhaps 8,000, ISI and al Qaeda.