The United States is accusing Pakistan’s spy agency of playing a direct role in aiding the militants who attacked the U.S. embassy in Kabul last week. The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, made the charge in Senate testimony.

Adm. Mike Mullen: “The Haqqani network, for one, acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Internal Services Intelligence agency. With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted that truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy. We also have credible intelligence that they were behind the June 28th attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller, but effective, operations. In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan, and most especially the Pakistani army and ISI, jeopardizes not only the prospect of our strategic partnership but Pakistan’s opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence.”

Mullen’s comments were the first to directly link the Pakistani government with an attack on the United States and marked the most serious allegation leveled from Washington against Pakistan after more than a decade of cooperation following the 9/11 attacks. Interior Minister Rehman Malik denied Mullen’s charge.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik: “No, of course, the Pakistan nation and we will not allow the boots on our ground. Our forces are quite capable of handling these terrorists. And the world has witnessed the way our army had taken action in Swat and Balakot. If you say that it is ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence directorate) involved in that attack, I categorically deny. I categorically deny. We have no any such policy to attack or to aid attack through Pakistani forces or through any Pakistani assessment.”