Former ISI chief says Israel, U.S. hoped to draw India into Afghan conflict through Mumbai siege

FORMER PAKISTANI INTEL CHIEF: MUMBAI EVENTS ORCHESTRATED TO DRAW INDIA INTO MIDEAST CONFLICTS

By Peter Duveen

PETER'S NEW YORK, December 9, 2008--Former Pakistani intelligence chief Hamid Gul said today that the recent events in Mumbai, India, in which some 170 people died in an armed siege of a hotel in that city, were orchestrated with the purpose of drawing India into the Middle East conflicts.

"The motive is very simple," Gul said. "The NATO allies are pulling out" of Afghanistan, he said in an interview today with radio personality Alex Jones. "They want to make it an Indian" cause, he said. Israel, he noted, also wanted to keep the conflict going in the region because it feared Americans could lose heart and and "go away without denuclearizing Pakistan."

Gul said America's allies were pulling out of the war zones in Afghanistan, and the United States needed to draw India into the conflict to make up for the manpower deficit.

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