US confronted Pak on ISI's role in Uri attack: Ex-envoy

Soon after the 2016 terror attack on an Indian Army base at Uri, the US confronted then-Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif with evidence of the InterServices Intelligence (ISI) agency's role in the assault, according to a new book by former envoy Ajay Bisaria.

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The US ambassador to Pakistan met Sharif after the incident in September 2016, which resulted in the death of 19 Indian soldiers and which was attributed to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and handed over a file containing "among other nuggets, information of the ISI's complicity in planning the Uri attacks", Bisaria writes in Anger Management.

So compelling was the evidence, it fuelled Sharif's resolve to confront the Pakistan Army and put in motion a series of events that led to the PML-N party chief's ouster from his position in 2017 and forced him to go into self-exile in 2018.

The role of the US in confronting Sharif over the Uri attack has not been reported before. Though Bisaria doesn't name the US envoy to Pakistan who met Sharif, the post was then held by David Hale. The January 2016 terror attack on Indian Air Force base at Pathankot, also blamed on JeM, and the Uri attack derailed prospects created for better India-Pakistan ties by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's invitation to Sharif to join his inauguration in 2014 and Modi's surprise visit to Lahore in 2015 to attend wedding of Sharif's granddaughter.

Sharif, "dismayed" by the information provided by the US on the ISI's role in the Uri attack, summoned a meeting of civilian and military leaders at the Prime Minister's Office to discuss the matter.

Then Pakistan foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry made a presentation which stated the country faced "diplomatic isolation" and there was a demand for "some visible action" against JeM following an investigation of the Pathankot attack. The meeting was first reported by Pakistan's Dawn newspaper in October 2016 and led to the controversy that became known as "Dawngate".

Bisaria writes that an "angry and embarrassed [Pakistan] army saw this as the tipping point; a civilian was rocking the boat and publicly questioning a carefully considered 'security policy' of deploying militants in the neighbourhood".