Flashpoint Exclusive: Captive Pakistani Intel Officer Threatens to Reveal "Secret Game" Behind Afghan Conflict
By Evan Kohlmann
In the wake of the latest embarrassing disclosures about Pakistan's unhelpful role in the Afghan conflict, Flashpoint Global Partners has obtained an unpublished video of retired Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer Colonel Imam Sultan Amir Tarar, who has been held hostage by militants in Pakistan’s tribal region since March 2010, when he arrived in the area alongside another former ISI officer Khalid Khwaja.
Tarar, a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war and a reputed expert on guerilla warfare, has acknowledged a long relationship with the Afghan Taliban and its leader Mullah Mohammed Omar—but has been far more critical of the Pakistani Taliban movement. During a recent New York Times interview, Tarar admonished the TTP and its leadership as “troublemakers” who should be “neutralized.”
In his latest video-recorded message, Colonel Imam Tarar claims that he has been kidnapped by “Lashkar Jhangvi al-Alami, Abdullah Mansour” faction and insists that the Pakistani government has done nothing to facilitate his release. If the government continues to refuse negotiations for his freedom, Tarar further threatens to disclose highly sensitive information about “the weaknesses of our nation” and the secret “game being played with Afghanistan, India, Russia, and America.”
Still images and an English transcript of the video of Colonel Sultan Amir Tarar are now available via the website of Flashpoint Global Partners - http://www.flashpoint-intel.com.
