ISLAMABAD, March 12: A top official of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) told a group of editors and senior journalists here on Wednesday that the Jamaat-i-Islami was not suspected of having links with Al Qaeda.

He, however, did not rule out the possibility of individuals belonging to the JI being involved with the group on their own.

The ISI official was answering questions after an unusual on-the-record media briefing at the agency’s headquarters on the strategy and focus of its counter-terrorism campaign and its achievements so far in this regard.

When asked for his opinion on the allegations being levelled by responsible government officials against the Jamaat-i-Islami, he said the Jamaat as a party was not under suspicion.

He, however, refused to confirm or deny a news report which said that on Monday night the ISI had hosted a dinner for the 54 senators of the ruling alliance and asked the journalists to keep their questions confined to the ISI’s counter-terrorism efforts, the main subject of the briefing.

He also dismissed on the same ground another query about the kidnapping and torture of a Punjab MPA allegedly by the ISI.

The main purpose of the briefing appeared to be to take the local media into confidence on the progress of ISI’s counter-terrorism campaign and also to clarify various misleading impressions that seemed to have crept into the newspaper stories filed on a similar briefing given by the ISI to the foreign media a couple of days ago.

When asked why the briefing could not have been arranged by the ISPR at its headquarters rather than at the ISI headquarters, the ISPR chief, Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi, who was also present on the occasion, said the tradition of keeping the intelligence agencies away from the glare of publicity had been broken specifically in order to clear the impression being spread by the foreign media and particularly the Indian press that the ISI was being run by rogue elements and that many of its field staff was operating on their own and were in cohorts with terrorists.

Answering a question as to why the ISI needed such active and intrusive help from the FBI when the agency itself was so efficient, the agency official said the FBI had the best technical back up in the world and its communication equipment, especially the intercepting gadgets were of immense value in flushing out the terrorists.

He denied that the FBI or personnel of any other foreign intelligence agencies accompanied the Pakistani staff on actual raids.

“They help in locating the culprits and we do the rest,” he added.

He said the interrogation was normally done jointly along with the FBI and then if the person being interrogated was a Pakistani he was dealt with according to the local laws, otherwise he was handed over to the FBI after getting clearance from the country of his origin.

He agreed with a questioner that information about arrests and other related matters was probably leaked to the foreign press by the FBI at the time of joint interrogation.

In this connection, the episode of the arrest of Khalid Shaikh was mentioned. He was arrested in the early hours of March 1, and within hours the news was all over the US media whereas the Pakistani press came to know about it only in the afternoon.

He denied that the ISI had ever claimed that the agency was only hours away from Osama bin Laden’s arrest. “During the interrogation Khalid Shaikh had said that he had met Osama bin Laden in December last. But then he changed the story and said he had not seen him lately. Then the matter was further compounded when he started changing his story every time he was asked about this meeting of his with Osama bin Laden. When his answers were leaked to the foreign press out of context stories of his imminent arrest started getting circulated.”

The official was not prepared to say anything about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, but he appeared rather convinced that he was not in Pakistan.

He said until March 10 the ISI had conducted about 131 raids, arrested 446 foreigners mostly, while they were crossing the border with Afghanistan. About 382 of them have been extradited, 56 released and eight are still undergoing interrogation.

The official who conducted the briefing gave a detailed account of Pakistan’s perspective of war on terrorism, the country’s response to the challenge, the new focus developed on counter-terrorism and the effects of the new focus.

He said terrorism had no faith and on the other hand the international community was doing nothing to address the underlying factors that promote terrorism.

He listed all the measures so far taken by Pakistan to counter terrorism and curb religious extremism and also showed with the help of charts how the ISI itself had been restructured to meet its new task emerging from the new focus.

He said the agency had also undergone strategic reorientation.