ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's army chief General
Ashfaq Kiani has cemented his control over the
Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) with the
appointment of close confidant Lt Gen Zaheer
ul-Islam to lead the country's spy agency. The
elevation of Zaheer to 20th director general comes
after serving as the agency's head of internal
security and counter intelligence, where he dealt
with the widespread terror threat inflicting
Pakistan.
The 56-year old Zaheer was
promoted by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on
Kiani's recommendation, replacing Lt Gen Ahmed
Shuja Pasha. His appointment has finally put to
rest speculation that Pasha might get yet another
extension, having already been granted two
consecutive extensions in 2010 and 2011. The
outgoing DG ISI was making frantic efforts to
secure another one-year term despite the fact that
he had fallen out of favor, not only with
President Asif Zardari and Gilani but also with
Army Chief
Kiani, especially in the
aftermath of the Memogate scandal which has
already backfired badly, leaving the security
establishment hugely embarrassed.
Zaheer,
who is currently the Corps Commander of Karachi,
will take charge as the new ISI chief on March 18,
when Pasha retires formally. A specialized
paratrooper, Zaheer comes from a well-known
military family in Punjab province. He is assuming
command of the ISI at a time when the agency is
facing intense media flak for undertaking
activities that do not come under its purview,
with allegations flying over political
wheeling-dealing and human-rights abuses. Besides
clearing negative perceptions and creating a new
image for the agency, as new director general,
Zaheer will have to take drastic steps to turn it
into a non-political, purely professional and law
abiding agency.
Kiani has clearly
prevailed upon the government in getting his
trusted aide appointed to lead the ISI, according
to analysts, and if the past is any indication,
Zaheer could be the next army chief, since Kiani
too was director general of the ISI before being
elevated to Chief of Army Staff. Zaheer is due to
retire in October, 2014, a full year after Kiani
retires after completing his second three-year
term.
Unlike many of the previous spy
chiefs who had served the ISI since the days of
General Pervez Musharraf, Zaheer is considered to
be an open-minded and moderate general. With a
little over two years in active military service
he has held several high-profile positions. He is
regarded as a typical infantry soldier and comes
from the same arm of the military as Kiani. Having
served as Chief of Staff at the Army Strategic
Forces Command (known as Army SF Command) from
2004-2006, Zaheer commanded the 12th Infantry
Division based in the Murree Division for the next
two years (2006-2008). The Army SF Command
consists of the Air Force Strategic Command (AFSF)
and the Naval Strategic Command (NSC) and is
tasked to command all of Pakistan's land based
strategic forces.
Moving to the ISI in
2008 as Director General of internal security and
counter intelligence, Zaheer was responsible for
law and order, coordination with law-enforcement
agencies, supporting counter-terrorism operations,
keeping a close watch on activities of the foreign
diplomats in Pakistan and preventing the
penetration of extremist elements in the armed
forces. He was also responsible for handling
internal security situations like the violent
nationalist movement in Balochistan province and
the ethno-sectarian strife in Karachi, the
provincial capital of Sindh. But the general
perception is that he did not have much success in
dealing with the law and order situation either in
Balochistan or in Karachi.
The change of
guard at the ISI has taken place at a crucial
juncture when the Pakistan parliament is set to
review ties with the United States in the
aftermath of the November 26 Salala attack by
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) planes.
Pakistan-United States ties touched the lowest ebb
following the deadly strike which killed 25
Pakistani soldiers, prompting Islamabad to suspend
NATO supplies to Afghanistan through its land
route, besides compelling the Americans to vacate
the Shamsi air base in Balochistan. Although the
ISI has little to do with conduct of bilateral
ties with the US, the spy agency and its American
counterpart, the Central Intelligence Agency, play
a crucial role in determining the nature of the
relationship, owing to their intelligence
collaboration.
The vital role an ISI chief
can play in shaping ties with the Americans
security establishment can be gauged from the fact
that Lt Gen Pasha used to directly talk to the US
military leadership on Kiani's behalf even during
tense military-to-military ties between the two
countries. The outgoing ISI chief was considered
close to the Americans when he assumed command of
the ISI, mainly because of his perceived
anti-Taliban and liberal views. The Americans
fully backed his appointment, thinking that he
could reorient the ISI, which is often described
as a state within a state and is accused of
maintaining close contacts with the Afghan
Taliban. But the US intelligence community soon
concluded that many of the anti-US jihadi
organizations operating from Pakistan were being
backed by the ISI in a bid to pursue the
geo-strategic agenda of Pakistan Army in the
region.
Nevertheless, ties had suffered a
major setback in November 2010 when a US federal
court issued a summons for the director-general of
the ISI and a number of senior office bearers of
the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) for their involvement in
the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The court was
hearing a law suit filed by relatives of Gavriel
Noah Holtzberg, an American Jew, who was killed
along with his wife, during the November 2008
Mumbai terrorist attacks. The petitioners had
alleged that the ISI had a role in the attacks.
The ugly episode deeply upset Pakistan's security
establishment and caused fresh strains in the
already thorny relationship with the Americans.
On December 16, 2010, almost a month after
the November 19, 2010 summons for the ISI chief
and others was issued, the Islamabad police moved
to charge CIA station chief in Pakistan - who was
supervising the US drone campaign - with murder.
Jonathan Banks was charged with providing
operational guidance for the drone attacks in
Pakistan's tribal belt. Washington had
subsequently decided to withdraw Banks from
Islamabad, citing security threats after being
named in a murder case by Islamabad police. The US
media subsequently alleged, while quoting
intelligence sources, that the ISI was involved in
blowing up the cover of CIA station chief
especially when Washington was pushing Islamabad
to expand a renewed CIA effort to help target
al-Qaeda and Taliban militants on the Pak-Afghan
border.
Pasha finally lost his credibility
as a dependable intelligence chief following the
death of Osama bin Laden by the US Special Forces
in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. Many in the US
military establishment accused the ISI of
incompetence and complicity after Bin Laden was
found to have lived in the Bilal Town area of
Abbottabad, which is hardly one kilometer from the
prestigious Kakul Military Academy, for up to five
years. The international community refuted Pasha's
stance that the ISI was not aware of Bin Laden's
presence.
Zaheer is known in the military
circles as a hardworking and upright soldier.
While his father retired from the army as a
colonel, his three brothers - Azharul Islam,
Fakharul Islam and Mazharul Islam also retired as
military officers. Zaheer's appointment marks an
apparent shift in the thinking of the country's
military and civilian leadership in the sense that
he has few connections with the US security
establishment - unlike Pasha who had an extended
circle of American friends, both within and
outside Pakistan. Zaheer has had little exposure
to the United States as a senior army officer,
having attended just one course at the US Army War
College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 2002-2003 as
a brigadier.
Security analysts say the
incoming ISI director general has held some of the
most important posts in the Pakistan Army since
his commissioning in 1977, and is seen both inside
and outside the military as an experienced and
professional soldier. His appointment is
considered critical from three angles: the current
stand-off in ties following the Salala attack, the
situation in Afghanistan - especially with regard
to the withdrawal of international troops, and
last but not the least the fact that the country
is entering into election year amid entrenched
tensions between the civil and military
leadership.
However, the most important
challenge facing Zaheer will be to repair the
fast-eroding military to military relations
between the two countries, which is only possible
if the ISI agrees to revive its suspended
intelligence sharing operations with the CIA.
While reacting to Zaheer's appointment, former CIA
Director Mike Hayden has said it could be the
beginning of a fresh start for the US-ISI
relationship. "The United States will look at this
as a chance to reboot the relationship with ISI
which has been severely strained over the past
year," he said. To recall, the US government and
military officials have accused the ISI of aiding
and protecting the Afghan Taliban. The former
chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike
Mullen had accused the ISI of protecting a key
Taliban group, the Haqqani network, calling it a
"veritable arm" of Pakistan's premier spy agency.
At a special joint session of parliament
likely to be held this month, the broad contours
of a new policy towards the United States will be
debated. But a major obstacle to the revival of
military-to-military as well as diplomatic ties is
the continuing drone strikes in the tribal belt of
Pakistan. It would be hard for the Pakistani
security establishment to revive military ties
without a pledge from the Americans to stop their
drone campaign in Pakistani tribal belt. But the
US administration is not expected to give such a
commitment until and unless the Pakistani
establishment decides to withdraw its covert
support to the Afghan Taliban against the US-led
Allied Forces in Afghanistan.
On the
domestic front, the new ISI chief faces two key
challenges posed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan,
which is hearing two petitions about the alleged
involvement of the ISI in the enforced
disappearance and extra-judicial killings of
civilians and the distribution of US$15.5 million
by the spy agency to a coterie of right-wing
politicians in an election-rigging scheme to
influence the results of the 1990 polls. Zaheer's
predecessor was not only accused of masterminding
the infamous Memogate scam against the government,
but also charged with backing the Tehrik-e-Insaaf
(Justice Movement), led by a right-wing
cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. He was
also accused of creating the Difaa-e-Pakistan
Council, another dummy alliance of religious
parties, which is aligned with non-state jihadi
actors.
Therefore, keeping in view a
plethora of controversies surrounding the ISI
especially during Pasha's tenure, it would be sane
for his successor to depoliticize the spy agency
by putting to an end its overwhelming involvement
in politics. Zaheer will have to decide whether or
not to continue his predecessor's ill-conceived
policy of meddling in politics and backing
favorite parties and politicians, or to return to
its original job of providing national security
intelligence assessment to the government with a
view to combating external security threats.
Pakistan's well-known English newspaper
Dawn observed in its March 11, 2012 editorial
titled "Way forward for ISI" that the ISI should
wrap up its political activities and focus on the
fight against militancy. With the so-called Afghan
endgame likely to be played out on Zaheer
ul-Islam's watch, with militancy inside Pakistan
morphing and still posing a formidable threat, and
with Pakistan's cooperation with the outside world
on curbing Islamist militancy likely to continue
to be under serious scrutiny, Zaheer will have
more than enough to contend with.
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
