US asks ISI to aid Afghan peace

Turnaround comes weeks after US accused Pak of helping Haqqani network

Just a month after accusing Pakistans spy agency of secretly supporting the Haqqani terrorist network the Obama administration is now relying on the same intelligence service to help organise and kick-start reconciliation talks aimed at ending the Afghan war.

The revamped approach,which Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Fight,Talk,Build during a high-level US delegations visit to Kabul and Islamabad this month,combines continued US air and ground strikes against the Haqqani network and the Taliban with an insistence that Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence agency get them to the negotiating table.

But some elements of the ISI see little advantage in forcing those negotiations,because they see the insurgents as perhaps their best bet for maintaining influence in Afghanistan as the US reduces its presence there.

The strategy is emerging amid an increase in the pace of attacks against Americans in Kabul,including a suicide attack Saturday that killed as many as 10 Americans and in which the Haqqanis are suspected. It is the latest effort at brokering a deal with militants before the last of 33,000 US surge troops prepare to pull out of Afghanistan by September.

But even inside the Obama administration,the new initiative has been met with skepticism,in part because Pakistan has developed its own strategy. One senior US official summarised the Pakistani position as Cease-fire,Talk,Wait for the Americans to Leave.

In short,the US is in the position of having to rely heavily on the ISI to help broker a deal with the same group of militants that leaders in Washington say the ISI is financing and supporting.

On Sunday,US intelligence officials deepened an investigation into what role,if any,the Haqqani network played in the bombing in Kabul.

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I dont think anyone expects Secretary Clintons visit to produce reconciliation, said Bruce O Riedel,a former CIA. The deterioration of US-Pakistan relations is likely to continue.ERIC SCHMITT & DAVID E SANGER