ISLAMABAD - The race has begun for the
coveted slot of director general of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as Pakistan's
civilian and military leadership has decided
against retaining ISI chief Lieutenant General
Ahmed Shuja Pasha. Especially in the aftermath of
the "Memogate" scandal, he has fallen out of favor
not only with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime
Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani but also with Chief of
Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
Memogate involved Pakistani-American
businessman Mansoor Ijaz claiming that the
Pakistan government had sought the Barack Obama
administration's help to stave off a military coup
following al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's May 2,
2011, killed in a covert US commando operation in
the Pakistan town of
Abbottabad. Pasha came under
heavy criticism when Bin Laden was found living in
Pakistan, hardly a kilometer from the Kakul
Military Academy, which is located in a
high-security garrison town on the edge of
Islamabad.
The international community
raised serious questions about the presence of Bin
Laden in Abbottabad, refuting Pasha's stance that
his agency was not aware of his being there.
Despite the glaring failure of the ISI to
track down the world's most wanted fugitive
terrorist, who had been living in Abbottabad for
five years, Pasha somehow managed to hold onto his
position, and then "unearthed" the Memogate
scandal a few months later.
While
investigating the memo without even seeking
permission from the government, Pasha deemed it
fit to travel to London, meet with Ijaz on October
22, 2011, and persuade Kayani to take up the issue
with the Zardari-led Pakistan People's Party (PPP)
government, maintaining that the memo had
compromised the country's national security.
In the whole process, Pasha bypassed the
prime minister and his office and behaved as if he
were not answerable to the civilian setup.
The scandal eventually forced Pakistan's
ambassador to Washington, Hussain Haqqani, to quit,
besides prompting the Supreme Court to appoint a
high-level judicial commission to investigate the
alleged role of Zardari in it.
However, as
the commission took up the case and asked Mansoor
to come to Pakistan and prove his allegations, he
first dilly-dallied and finally refused to appear,
citing security reasons. Not only that, he accused
Pasha of touring some Arab countries after the May
2 Abbottabad raid to discuss a military coup
against the government.
The charge put
Pasha in a tight corner since it was leveled by
none other than his own source - Mansoor - as
reported by a British daily, The Independent, on
December 13, 2011. The incident deeply embarrassed
the mighty military establishment besides causing
serious tensions between the political and the
military elite.
As things stand, it seems
the Pakistani security establishment has lost
interest in the Memogate case which is still being
pursued by the commission.
Pasha's rise
and fall Pasha was appointed director
general of the ISI in September 2008, replacing
Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, who had been
appointed by General Pervez Musharraf. Taj replaced
Kayani, who had served as spy chief under Musher
from October 2004 to October 2007.
Pasha
was born on March 18, 1952, and was due to reach
the age of superannuation on March 18, 2010, but
received two extensions until this March 18. He
was recently named as one of the 100 most
influential people by Time Magazine.
He is
unlikely to get another extension despite claims
by his close associates that the PPP government
will do this to ease tensions with the security
establishment.
Indeed, well-informed
government circles say Pasha stands "zero chance"
of staying in the job as the suspicion is he
masterminded "Memogate" to pressurize the
government into giving him another one-year term.
These circles reminded that Gilani said on January
29, "All these reports [on an extension] are
nothing but misinformation."
As the
country's military and political elite has decided
to get rid of Pasha and bring in a new face to
head the ISI, front runners among those tipped to
take over include eight lieutenant generals and
two major generals. Those who have already been
short-listed include Corps Commander Karachi,
Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam (who is due to
retire on October 1, 2014), the Adjutant General
at general headquarters Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal (due to retire on April 15, 2015).
Army chief Kayani is expected to short list
three names before the March 18 retirement of
Pasha, which would be sent to Gilani who will
choose one of them in consultation with Zardari.
Well-informed khaki circles say Islam has bright
chances, keeping in view his experience in the ISI
- as the head of the spy agency's internal wing
that deals with counter-intelligence and domestic
issues - before his promotion to the rank of a
three-star general and his subsequent appointment
as commander Karachi last year.
Coming
from a military family of Punjab province, Islam
enjoys rapport with Kayani.
It is believed
that Adjutant General Lieutenant General Jawed
Ribald has an equal chance of being selected,
mainly because he served as Director General
Military Operations before becoming adjutant
general. Pasha was in that position before his
elevation to the ISI.
But there are also
those in establishment circles who do not rule out
the possibility of Kayani elevating the incumbent
director general of Military Intelligence, Major
General Naushad Kayani, as the next ISI director
general by promoting him to the rank of lieutenant
general to make him eligible for the top slot.
However, the deputy director general of
the ISI, Major General Sahibzada Isfandiyar Ali
Khan Pataudi, could well be the dark horse due to
his personal friendship with Kayani. Coming from
the famous Pataudi family of the sub-continent
(which made its mark in the fields of show biz and
cricket, both in India and Pakistan), Isfandiyar
is an accomplished polo player and chairman of the
Pakistan Polo Association.
His aides say
his closeness with Kayani, coupled with his liberal
outlook and distinguished family background, could
work to his advantage. An armored corps officer,
he first needs to get a promotion to become
eligible.
The appointment of a new ISI
chief has assumed greater significance against the
backdrop of civil-military tensions. While in
theory the premier intelligence agency falls under
the jurisdiction of the prime minister - being the
chief executive he could appoint a civilian to
head the agency - in practice the ISI falls within
the army's chain of command.
But
government sources say although the prime minister
has the constitutional authority to appoint the
ISI chief, he would leave it to Kayani.
Past attempts by former prime minister
Benazir Bhutto and prime minister Nawaz Sharif to
appoint lieutenant generals closer to their
governments as spy masters backfired.
Bhutto appointed Lieutenant General
(retired) Shamsur Rahman Kallu (May 1989-August
1990) while Nawaz Sharif appointed Lieutenant
General Ziauddin Butt (October 1998-October 1999)
as ISI chiefs. However, both the moves led to
strained ties between the civilian government and
the security establishment.
While Kallu
died of a heart attack without completing his
term, Butt was arrested by Musharraf's
administration when he toppled the Sharif
government in October 1999.
Pasha's tenure
will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. It
was hardly a few weeks after his appointment that
a group of 11 terrorists belonging to the
Lashkar-e-Toiba and allegedly trained by the ISI
traveled by sea all the way from Karachi to Mumbai
to carry out the 26/11 attacks in 2008, killing
172 people.
Some other key terror attacks
that were carried out during his tenure and which
are described as intelligence failures included
the March 3, 2009, attack on the Sri Lankan
cricket team in Lahore, the May 27, 2009, suicide
attack on the provincial headquarters of the ISI
in Lahore, the October 11, 2009, terrorist attack
on the general headquarters of army, the December
4, 2009, terrorist attack at the Parade Lane
mosque in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, the
killing of Bin Laden and the fidayeen
(suicide) attack targeting the Mehran Naval base
in Karachi three weeks later.
The ISI was
also accused of aiding the infamous Haqqani
militant network to carry out the September 13,
2011, attack on the US Embassy in Kabul. During
Pasha's tenure, the ISI was also charged with
involvement in large-scale disappearances and
subsequent extra-judicial killings of missing
persons.
The agency further came under
sharp criticism for its alleged involvement in the
May 29, 2011, kidnapping and subsequent murder of
Syed Saleem Shahzad. The slain Asia Times Online
Pakistan bureau chief had informed Human Rights
Watch in an e-mail that should he be killed, the
ISI should be considered the principal suspect.
Another major charge against Pasha was his
involvement in internal politics with a view to
weakening the elected government.
While
making public US diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks
quoted Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik
in December 2010 as telling the then-US ambassador
to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, that it was not
Kayani but the ISI chief who was hatching
conspiracies against Zardari.
The cables
revealed that Malik had sought an urgent
appointment with Patterson in November 2009 and
said that Pasha was hatching plots to dislodge
Zardari, adding that the president needed
political security. Patterson, however, was
certain that the ISI chief could not do it alone.
The ISI is Pakistan's premier intelligence
agency and responsible for providing national
security intelligence assessments to the
government.
However, the ISI's involvement
in national politics has weakened mainstream
political parties, given a boost to horse-trading
and arrested the growth of a political culture.
Demands by parliamentarians that the
charter of the ISI be amended to exclude unrelated
matters like domestic politics have been the
result, as politicians seek ways to allow it to
concentrate on its actual job of combating
external security threats.
Amir
Mir is a senior Pakistani journalist and the
author of several books on the subject of militant
Islam and terrorism, the latest being The
Bhutto murder trail: From Waziristan to GHQ.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online
(Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
