Pakistan denies involvement in 2009 attack on CIA base

Pakistan has dismissed as “preposterous” US claims that its Inter–Services Intelligence (ISI) agency helped fund a deadly attack on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) outpost in Afghanistan in 2009.

According to Press TV, seven CIA officers were killed, and six other were injured in the bomb attack inside Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan’s Khost Province on December 30, 2009.

According to a newly declassified US State Department cable, an unidentified ISI officer paid $200,000 to an extremist group, known as Haqqani network, to facilitate the operation, which was ranked as the most lethal attack against the US spy agency in more than 25 years.

"Allegations in the media on Pakistan's involvement with HQN [Haqqani network] are preposterous," a Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement said on Friday.

"In fact, we were shocked and deeply saddened when precious American lives were lost at the Chapman facility in 2009 in an unfortunate attack that was later claimed by TTP in a publicly available video, featuring the suicide bomber with the leader of the TTP," the statement said, using an acronym for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a terrorist group based in Pakistan.

"Pakistan is determined to eradicate the scourge of terrorism and has taken action against all terrorist elements, without discrimination," the statement added.

The heavily redacted State Department cable was obtained by the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute at George Washington University.

ME