New York: Former Pakistani army officials trained the terrorists who went on rampage last week in Mumbai, The New York Times said on Wednesday quoting unnamed Pentagon officials.
"A former Defense Department official said on Wednesday that American intelligence agencies had determined that former officers from Pakistan's Army and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped train the Mumbai attackers," The New York Times said in its news report from Washington.
"But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that no specific links had been uncovered yet between the terrorists and Pakistani government," it said, without providing any further details.
Pakistan has so far refuted Indian allegations, supported by the US, of having harbored these terrorists, who killed 183 people, several of whom were foreign nationals, and claimed that they are non-state actors.
The revelations by a former Defence Department official comes at a time when India has said that it has strong evidence and intelligence information that indicates the Mumbai attackers and their trainers came from Pakistan. It has also asked Pakistan to arrest and send to it 20 people wanted in India for terrorist activities. Pakistan has said that it would not extradite terror suspects.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was in New Delhi Wednesday to demonstrate American support to India, urged Pakistan to take on terrorists within its borders.
"We believe Pakistan has a central role to play in this, to make certain that these terrorists cannot continue to operate and operate in this fashion," Rice said in New Delhi.
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