New Delhi:
The US Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has told NDTV that America has raised concerns with Pakistan about the links between terror groups and Pakistan's ISI.
Holbrooke said any support for these groups is dangerous, and that America considers Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba as deadly as the Taliban.
Significantly, he also ruled out any role for the Haqqanis in Afghanistan's future- the Haqqani faction of the Taliban is backed by Pakistan.
Holbrooke is in Delhi to discuss the role of India and other regional powers in stabilising Afghanistan. He flew in from Kabul after an international conference held earlier this week.
India has, in the last few weeks, referred publicly to statements made by Lashkar operative David Coleman Headley, the Pakistan-American arrested by the FBI who has pleaded guilty to helping plan the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Headley, said Home Secretary GK Pillai, had revealed that the ISI had been involved in 26/11 "from the beginning to the end." That comment, made on the eve of Indo-Pak talks in Islamabad, provoked an angry response from Pakistan. In an interview to NDTV on Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister SM Krishna said that Pillai's remarks were factual but ill-timed, and cast a shadow over the crucial dialogue with Pakistan.
(Read: Pillai's remarks were true but ill-timed, says Krishna)On Tuesday, National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon also said that the nexus between the Pakistani establishment and terror groups is apparent, and is growing.