Leaked NATO report not analysis of progress: ISAF Wednesday, 01 February 2012 11:12

KABUL:  A leaked NATO report accusing Pakistan of secretly aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan is not an analysis of the progress of the military campaign, a spokesman for NATO forces in Kabul said Wednesday.

The document "may provide some level of representative sampling of Taliban opinions and ideals but clearly should not be used as any interpretation of campaign progress," said Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings.

The report -- leaked to The Times newspaper and the BBC -- was compiled from information gleaned from insurgent detainees and was given to commanders in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) last month, media reports said.

The "State of the Taliban" document claims that Islamabad, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, is "intimately involved" with the insurgency.

The BBC said the report was based on material from 27,000 interrogations of more than 4,000 captured Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives.

The Times quoted the report as saying the Taliban's "strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact", despite setbacks in 2011.

"Once ISAF is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable."

Cummings told AFP: "The classified document is a compilation of Taliban detainees' opinions and ideals based on their comments while in detention.

"It's important that this context be understood and extremely important not to draw conclusions based on the Taliban comments."(AFP)