Former head of Pakistan's powerful spy agency dies

Hamid Gul died of brain haemorrhage at the age of 79.Hamid Gul, the former head of Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency who strongly backed the Taliban, has died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 79.

Gul, who was a military commander in the Pakistani Army in the 1980s, died on Saturday night at a military hospital in Muree, 50km northeast of the capital Islamabad.He served as the head of the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency from 1987 to 1989.

A controversial figure, he became a strong backer of the Taliban government in Afghanistan and often blamed the US and India for instability in Pakistan.