The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (also Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI) is the largest intelligence service in Pakistan. It is one of the three main branches of Pakistan's intelligence agencies.
The Inter-Services Intelligence was created as an independent unit in 1948 in order to strengthen the performance of Pakistan's Military Intelligence during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. It was formerly in the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which handled intelligence sharing between the different branches of the military as well as external intelligence gathering. Its headquarters was initially located in Rawalpindi but later it was moved to Islamabad. The current director of the organization is Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who took over in September 2008.
26 Dec 2001: In a major shift in policy, the Pakistan government shut down a wing of its Inter Services Intelligence that was allegedly providing military and financial support to freedom fighters in Kashmir.
Origins
After independence in 1947, two new intelligence agencies were created in Pakistan: the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Military Intelligence (MI). However, the weak performance of the MI in sharing intelligence between the Army, Navy and Air Force during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 led to the creation of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in 1948. The ISI was structured to be manned by officers from the three main military services, and to specialize in the collection, analysis and assessment of external intelligence, either military or non-military. The ISI was the brainchild of Australian-born British Army officer, Major General R. Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pakistan Army. Initially, the ISI had no role in the collection of internal intelligence, with the exception of the North-West Frontier Province and Azad Kashmir.
Objectives
The objectives of ISI are:
- Safeguard Pakistani interests and national security inside and outside the country.
- Monitor the political and military developments in adjoining countries, which have direct bearing on Pakistan's national security and in the formulation of its foreign policy and to collect foreign and domestic intelligence in such cases.
- Co-ordination of intelligence functions of the three military services.
- Keep vigilant surveillance over its cadre, foreigners, the media, politically active segments of Pakistani society, diplomats of other countries accredited to Pakistan and Pakistani diplomats serving outside the country.
++ Organization
ISI's headquarters are located in Islamabad and currently the head of the ISI is called the Director General who is usually a serving Lieutenant General in the Pakistan Army. Under the Director General, three Deputy Director Generals report directly to him and are in charge in three separate fields of the ISI which are Internal wing - dealing with counter-intelligence and political issues inside Pakistan, External wing - handling external issues, and Analysis and Foreign Relations wing.
The general staff of the ISI mainly come from police, paramilitary forces and some specialized units from the Pakistan Army such as the SSG commandos. While the total number has never been made public, experts estimate about 10,000 officers and staff members, which does not include informants and assets.
Departments
- Joint Intelligence X, coordinates all the other departments in the ISI. Intelligence and information gathered from the other departments are sent to JIX which prepares and processes the information and from which prepares reports which are presented.
- Joint Intelligence Bureau, responsible for gathering political intelligence. It has three subsections, one divided entirely to operations against India.
- Joint Counterintelligence Bureau, responsible for surveillance of Pakistani diplomats abroad, along with intelligence operations in the [[Middle East]], South Asia, China, Afghanistan and the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.
- Joint Intelligence North, exclusively responsible for the Jammu and Kashmir region.
- Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous, responsible for espionage, including offensive intelligence operations, in other countries.
- Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau, operates intelligence collections along the India-Pakistan border.
- Joint Intelligence Technical
In addition, there are also separate explosives and a chemical warfare sections
History
In the late 1950s, when Ayub Khan became the President of Pakistan, he expanded the role of ISI in safeguarding Pakistan's interests, monitoring opposition politicians, and sustaining military rule in Pakistan. The ISI was reorganised in 1966 after intelligence failures in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, and expanded in 1969. Khan entrusted the ISI with the responsibility for the collection of internal political intelligence in East Pakistan. Later on, during the Baloch nationalist revolt in Balochistan in the mid 1970s, the ISI was tasked with performing a similar intelligence gathering operation.
The ISI lost its importance during the regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was very critical of its role during the 1970 general elections, which triggered off the events leading to the partition of Pakistan and emergence of Bangladesh.
After General Zia ul-Haq seized power in July 1977, the ISI was expanded by making it responsible for the collection of intelligence about the Sindh based Communist party and various political parties such as the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
The Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s saw the enhancement of the covert action capabilities of the ISI by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). A special Afghan Section was created under the command of colonel Mohammed Yousaf to oversee the coordination of the war. A number of officers from the ISI's Covert Action Division received training in the US and many covert action experts of the CIA were attached to the ISI to guide it in its operations against the Soviet troops by using the Afghan Mujahideen.
1990s
1993
General Nasir Javed was prematurely retired from the army in May 1993 after the dismissal of Nawaz Sharif. The army-backed caretaker administration led by former World Bank executive Moeen Qureshi moved to clearn up ISI and alleviate US pressure on Pakistan. Scores of officers who had become closely linked with radical Afghan Mujahiddin during the Afghan-Soviet War were systematically weeded out. Some 1,100 operatives were either retired or sent back to their units in the army.1
2000s
2008
After much criticism, the Pakistani Government disbanded the ISI 'Political Wing' in 2008
Also See
