The unverified files say that Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, the country's spy service, has
been holding strategy sessions with Taliban leaders to aid their
efforts in Afghanistan.
An ISI spokesman denied the allegations, saying they were
"far-fetched and unsubstantiated," but said the agency would be
examining the files.
Wikileaks' documents, which cover a period from
January 2004 to December 2009, include descriptions of a covert US
special operations unit formed to target high-level al-Qaeda and Taliban
figures.
They say more than 2,000 leaders are on a "kill or
capture" list, but missions to hunt them down have led to unreported
civilian deaths.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, said he expected the leaked
records would "shape a [new] understanding of the past six years".
"The real story of this material is that it's war, it's one damn
thing after another," Assange said at a news conference in London on
Monday. "It is the continuous small events, the continuous death of
children, insurgents, allied forces, the maimed people."
Taliban dealings
The New York Timesin the United States,
Britain's Guardiannewspaper and the German weekly Der Spiegelwere all given about a month's
advanced access to the dosier, with each jointly unveiling their
findings on Sunday.
According to the Times report, the documents suggest
Pakistan "allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Talibanin secret strategy
sessions to organise networks of militant groups that fight against
American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate
Afghan leaders".
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, called the release
of the files "irresponsible" and said it consisted of "unprocessed"
reports from the field.
"The documents circulated by WikiLeaks do not reflect the current
on-ground realities," Haqqani said in a statement.
"The United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan are strategic partners
and are jointly endeavouring to defeat al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies
militarily and politically," he said.
The US government also condemned the records' disclosure, saying they
could threaten national security and endanger the lives of its forces.
"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified
information by individuals and organisations which could put the lives
of Americans and our partners at risk," James Jones, the US national
security adviser, said.
"These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to
deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our
common enemies."
Assange, however, defended his organisation's decision to release the
classified files, saying Wikileaks "tried hard to make sure this
material does not put innocents at harm", adding that all the documents
were at least seven months old.
Rejecting US government claims, he said: "We are familiar with groups
whose abuse we expose attempting to criticise the messenger, to
distract from the power of the message ... we don't see any difference
in the White House's response in this case to the other groups that we
have exposed."
'Grimmer picture'
According to the records, the US has tried to cover up the fact that
the Taliban have heat-seeking surface-to-air "stinger" missiles.
The documents also show that the Taliban's widening use of roadside
bombs have killed more than 2,000 civilians.
 |
| The documents
reveal new details about Afghan civilian deaths [EPA] |
Eric Schmitt, one of the New York Times reporters who worked
on analysing the files over the last month, told Al Jazeera that the
documents gave an unvarnished view of the war, a "very fine grain, down
on the ground level detail that hasn't been revealed before ... whether
it's in firefights or drone activities, secret operations performed by
commandos of the CIA".
He said they painted "a much grimmer picture and portrayal than
either the Bush or Obama administrations have allowed so far".
Included in the many revelations of the leaked documents were also
reports that the CIA expanded paramilitary operations in Afghanistan and
ran the Afghan spy agency from 2001-2008.
Pakistan's ISI had helped establish the Taliban's government in the
1990s, when Afghanistan was wracked by infighting following the
withdrawal of Soviet troops.
The country's leadership reversed course after the September 11, 2001
attacks on the US, agreeing to assist the US against the Taliban, which
the US accused of sheltering Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader.
But US officials and analysts have persistently questioned whether
all of Pakistan's security apparatus is on the same page, with some
believing that Islamabad's main interest is to ensure continued
influence in Afghanistan.
Iraq video
Wikileaks has become one of the biggest and most controversial
sources of classified government information, even publishing a document
showing that US intelligence had plans to shut it down.
In April, Wikileaks released video footage from a helicopter cockpit
showing a deadly
2007 aerial strike in the Iraqi capital that killed 12 civilians,
including two journalists from the Reuters news agency.
Army Specialist Bradley Manning, 22, was
charged this month with misconduct and putting national security at
riskfor allegedly leaking the classified video, and has now been
implicated in the release of the Afghan documents as well.
Sunday's released records consist largely of classified reports and
assessments from junior officers in the field that analysts use to
advise policymakers.
The leak is expected to put further pressure on Barack Obama, the US
president, to get results in Afghanistan as he send thousands of
additional troops to bolster forces already in the country.
