The ISI Chief's extension

R Banerji

The extension given to Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha has been reported by the Dawn’s Zafar Abbas , usually impeccable with his sources. It seems reliable enough and has, in fact, been partly corroborated by a statement from PPP’s Defence Minister, Ahmed Mukhtar, though there is deliberate obfuscation about the duration of his extended term,whether it is for one or two more years.

Commissioned in the Frontier Force Regiment (Fiffers) in April,1974, 58 yrs old Pasha (D.O.B- 19.03.’52) belongs to a prominent Quereshi family from Attock now settled in Wah. His father was a Headmaster in a school in Wah (the Pak Ordnance Factory township). His elder brother was a Brigadier. He is a Pathan with a Punjabi wife. 

Pasha had a fairly routine career in the military as a junior officer. He was Chief of Staff to GoC, 30 Corps, Gujranwala. As a Major General he held an Infantry Division in Sialkot. He was an instructor in the Command & Staff College,Quetta before proceeding on an international peace-keeping assignment under the UN ( Ethiopia/ Somalia ?). He came back to become Director General, Military Operations( April’06-Sept ’08), holding this post during the Musharraf- Kayani transition.He appears to have earned his spurs during this period, which was reflected in his taking over as DG,ISI in March,’08.Since then, he has already been given a year’s extension last year.  

Though he is currently reasonably well regarded by the Americans as a moderate or he may have been so projected by Kayani, Pasha suffered a tragedy in personal life several years ago, losing his son in a car accident in Multan. Some reports thereafter indicated that he became influenced by radical islamic teachings of the Ghamdi( Wahabi) school and came close to a retired Brigadier, Bilal, who expounded these teachings.

As Director General, Inter Services Intelligence(ISI) Pasha has been closely associated with Army Chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in implementing the`ducks and drakes’ policy of partly curbing and partly appeasing the islamic militant elements who were threatening to go out of hand in Swat and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A clever playing of traditional tribal animosities – of the Wazirs against the Mehsuds – has been part of this strategy. Keeping lines open to both Afghan Taliban of the Sirajuddin Haqqani ilk and sections of the Tehrik –e- Taliban(TTP)- especially Punjabi elements having links to the Punjab based Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LJ) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has also been part of these tactics under the Kayani dispensation. As such, his extension can hardly be good news for India.

Pasha seems to have overcome any personal stigma from the temporary setback suffered in this appeasement policy when ISI emissaries sent to mediate the release of kidnapped British journalist, Asad Quereshi- the well known Tablighi sympathiser, Sqdrn Leader(retd) Khalid Khwaja and Col(retd) Sultan Amir Tarar (also known to the Afghan Mujahideen as `Col Imam’ from his Afghan operation days) were successively murdered by the Hakimullah group of TTP( a video of the latter’s execution now circulating) though the British journalist was released, possibly on payment of a hefty ransom.

Despite specific evidence of direct ISI involvement surfacing in the Headley interrogation, Pasha has been doggedly pushing the line that ISI rogue elements were involved in the Mumbai Nov’08 attacks. His being implicated in an American court case has been an embarrassment in the evolving and lately rocky relationship between ISI and CIA. The ISI seems to have countered with some pressure to get the Islamabad Station Chief of the CIA, Jonathan Banks prematurely withdrawn from his post in December 2010.

The Raymond Davis incident, in which a CIA contract employee albeit under claimed diplomatic immunity shot and killed two armed Pakistanis following him in Lahore(January,29,’11), may have come as a blessing in disguise for ISI.It helped reverse the pattern of  its deteriorating relationship with the CIA . For Pasha personally too, it seems to have helped seal his unprecedented extension a day before Davis’ surprise acquittal by a Lahore court, after relatives of Davis’ victims appear to have been pressurised to accept a lucrative sum as `Diyat’ compensation. The way the Raymond Davis affair was handled and played up in the Pakistani media strongly suggested ISI complicity. 

This reflects a larger malaise which has brewed over the last few years epitomizing also the conflicting strategic priorities of the two countries in this region. There has been persisting mistrust between the ISI and the CIA despite continuing cooperation in counter terror operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and along the Pak- Afghan border. American agencies have long suspected that pinpointed intelligence was being preemptively leaked by ISI to enable prominent Al Qaeda and Taliban militants to shift safe havens and escape the dragnet of drone attacks. 

Pasha’s extension makes him the second most powerful person in Pakistan, after Army Chief Gen. Kayani, as long as he remains loyal to the latter. Sources having an inside view to Army Headquarters suggest the extension will be for one year more, till March, 2012. Even with a two year extension, Kayani will outlast Pasha’s tenure as he retires only in November, 2013. This may set at rest any speculation among the uninitiated about Pasha being possibly elevated as the next Army Chief. Pasha has not yet done a Corps Command, an assignment considered an essential pre-requisite to make any Army Lieutenant General eligible to hold that post. In any case, it would have been highly unusual for Pasha to be accommodated in a Corps Command as he is already serving on extension in his current assignment as DG, ISI. It may serve the more evident purpose of extending Kayani’s own comfort zone as he deals with the twin problems of an increasingly tenuous relationship with the United States and the growing clout of Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers within the security forces.

Nevertheless, Pasha’s extension may not go without eyebrows being raised critically within the Army establishment for having needlessly created the aura of indispensability and blocking of promotional avenues, not least among aspiring able lieutenants within ISI who may have hoped to succeed to the top slot and who may now have to seek other lucrative post-retirement avenues. Already, the ambitious Lt Gen Niaz Mohd Khattak, Deputy Director General, ISI (Analysis & Foreign Relations) has been slotted to the National Logistics Cell as DG. Some other Majors General may follow suit in similar assignments.

Some of these negative views may provide sustenance to disgruntled serving Lieutenant Generals hard done by Kayani’s own extension last year (Oct’10). An astute politician like Nawaz Sharif could exploit these fissures. During his premiership last time, Nawaz Sharif dabbled unduly in Army postings and tried to play favorites in Army promotions. His attempt to foist a DG, ISI of his own choice, Lt Gen Khwaja Ziauddin Butt as Army Chief in place of Musharraf cost him his Prime Ministership. How Kayani accommodates or counters these sentiments will need to be closely watched.

The PPP leadership seems to have been an innocent or impotent bystander to these developments. They may not have had much option, besieged as they remain with the threat of an impending destabilization movement organized by the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the fragile, now on- now off political alliance with the Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM), continuation of which Interior Minister, Rehman Malik is busy mediating with their exiled `Imam’, Altaf Hussain currently in London.

The Judiciary has not confronted the Army so far in the acceptance of this policy of providing long extensions to important posts like that of Army Chief and DG, ISI though it is increasingly critical in challenging the `disappearances’ in Baluchistan. As the well known proverb goes- there may be `many a slip between the cup and the lip’ - whether this applies to the Zardari conglomerate or the Kayani/Pasha combine- may yet surprise seasoned Pakistan watchers in India and elsewhere.

R Banerji is former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

Courtesy: New Indian Express, 16 March 2011

http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/op-ed/the-isi-chief%E2%80%99s-extension/256747.html

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).