U.S. wants Pakistan ex-spy chief on terror list

Why not just put the ISI on the UN terror list. Reuters

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A former head of the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency said Sunday the United States wants him on a U.N. list of people and organizations linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Long retired, Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul told Reuters the U.S. moves against him began several weeks ago, pre-dating the latest controversy surrounding the ISI.

The agency is currently under scrutiny because of its past links with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Kashmir jihadi organization that India and U.S. officials suspect supplied the gunmen who killed at least 171 people in a horrifying attack on Mumbai last month.

Gul, a vocal critic of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, said Pakistani foreign ministry officials had confirmed to him the United States was trying to put him on the U.N. list. He said he had asked his government for support.

"I don't know why America is so much after me," said the bluff, mustachioed Gul from his home in the military cantonment area of Rawalpindi, the garrison town south of Islamabad.