Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and operations

Pakistan's ISI: 'A Kingdom Within a Kingdom'?

Pakistan is one of the indispensable allies of the United States in the war on terror, especially in the current struggle against Taliban and other extremist movements in Central Asia. But the American relationship with Pakistan has remained precarious, partly because of the shadowy activities of Pakistan's main intelligence service the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). According to Sean Winchell, until the Pakistani general and the President Pervez Musharraf took the organization under control, "the ISI has been a 'kingdom within a kingdom,' answerable to neither the army nor Pakistan's President."

But the ISI always remained closer to -- and more dependant -- on the Army than on the civilian government. Pakistani leaders with close military ties have greatly increased the ISI mandate, increasing its power and influence within and outside Pakistan. Taking control of the ISI activities therefore will remain a great challenge for the civilian government in the foreseeable future.

The fact that the ISI has become such a powerful force in Pakistan can be explained by understanding its historical development. Pakistan's loss of its wars to India in 1948, 1965, and 1971 were catalyzing moments for the future role of the ISI in Pakistani politics. Pakistan lost all three wars and the intelligence services were held partly responsible. The Pakistani leaders, especially the Army Chieff of Staff General Ayub Khan, who seized power in a coup in 1958, increased the ISI power and responsibilities to both consolidate political power within Pakistan and compensate for the losses to India by undermining the latter through sabotage and intelligence activities. Khan's seizure of power added "a new political dimension to the ISI's responsibilities," since now the ISI was to help the military leaders who distrusted civilian rule."

The nature of the ISI has also been shaped by the influence of foreign intelligence agencies. It was initially modeled on the Iranian secret police SAVAK and in the 1960s and 1970s began to cooperate with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a coordinated effort to undermine the government of Indira Gandhi who was leaning more and more toward the Soviet Union. During its early development, the ISI also received training from the French intelligence service the SDECE. But the tight cooperation between the ISI and the CIA began after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The CIA not only poured the ISI with money to train its cadre and channel the money to the Afghan mujahedeen, but also turned a blind eye to ISI's intelligence collection of nuclear technology in Europe and the smuggling of heroine and opium to finance its domestic and foreign activities.

As a result of these historical developments, the ISI became a "state within a state," trusted with enormous power in terms of intelligence data, expertise, money, resources, and the responsibility to protect Pakistan's national security. Most of the ISI membership also came from the Army and the military leaders such as General Zia Ul-Haq increased the fundamentalist element with the ISI staff. As a result, the ISI has distrusted civilian governments such as those of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, assassinating close relatives of civilian rulers and intimidating them. According to Hassan Abbas of Harvard's Kennedy School of Governance, the ISI is supposed to be accountable to the Prime Minister as codified in the Constitution, but "its loyalties and interests lie" with the Army.

Due to ISI close ties to the Army, civilian governments of Bhutto and Sharif were unable to take control of the organization's activities. It was an Army man, General Musharraf, who was able to curb the ISI activities in the post-9/11 era. Musharraf was able to do so due to pressure from the United States and also due to the fact that he was a military leader. Musharraf realized that the only way to survive in the wake of an attack on the United States by forces that had ties to ISI (al-Qaeda and Taliban) was to throw Pakistan's lot with the United States and take control of the ISI activities in Afghanistan. Due to Musharraf's grip on the ISI, the organization joined efforts to hunt down al-Qaeda operatives, killing many of them and helping the FBI arrest them. As John Jack Rooney notes, Pakistan "has killed or captured more senior Al-Qaeda leaders than any other country."

But the fact that Pakistani government was not able to control the ISI until the country was ruled by a military leader and was pressured by a foreign power raises serious questions about the ability of the civilian government to implement an effective rule without being undermined by the ISI.

The control over the ISI activities is even more complicated because neither the Pakistani Army nor the ISI is a monolithic organization.

There are factions within each which may remain loyal to the government or act as shadowy groups. For example, the Pakistani military and the ISI have helped the United States in conducting a war against al-Qaeda and Taliban, within both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but at the same time, as reported by numerous Afghan and foreign analysts and reporters and as admitted by many Taliban operatives, the ISI continues to pour Taliban and other extremist factions in Afghanistan with money and logistical support. According to one Taliban logistics officer interviewed by Newsweek, Pakistan, namely the ISI, still "provides roughly 80% of the insurgents' funding" and that the "insurgents could barely cover their expenses in Kandahar province alone if not for the ISI."