Pakistan spy chief: No war with India

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- The new chief of Pakistan's spy agency says there will be no war with India, but also says militant Taliban leaders have a right to "say what they please."

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel published Wednesday, Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha says Pakistan will not wage war with India despite rising tension between the nations in the aftermath of last year's Mumbai terror attacks.

"We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds. We know fully well that terror is our enemy, not India," Pasha told the magazine, offering to visit New Delhi to talk with Indian leaders, which would be a first for a chief of Pakistan's powerful spy agency. Pasha, who formerly directed the military's operations against militant extremists in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, has headed ISI for three months.

The ISI director also told Der Speigel Taliban militants in the country's northwest tribal regions, who are launching attacks against NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan, "believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn't that freedom of opinion? … Shouldn't they be allowed to think and say what they please?"