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Pakistan agents now fight terror. Really.
Pakistan spymasters may have changed their tune. These days fighting domestic militancy is their main worry, they say, even if concern about arch-rival India is never far from their minds. "Our overall strategic policy is to end extremism," a senior intelligence officer said in a rare interview at the headquarters of the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.
| "Or at least to get it back under our control..." |
Finding the perpetrators of Sunday's assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf is the urgent priority for a secret service that at one time also had a reputation as a hot-bed of fundamentalism. The new priority is a change from the not too distant past when "the external threat" â India â would have been the first phrase on any ISI man's lips. "The extremist groups we fear are firstly Al Qaida and the foreign elements who have been here over the long term, and who have sympathisers locally," another senior ISI officer said.
| "They don't answer to us..." |
ISI agents for years may have supported Pakistani and Afghan militants, many allied with Al Qaida. But all that changed with the September 11 attacks on the United States. Musharraf was quick to throw his support behind the US war on terror, and the ISI underwent personnel changes to match. Lt Gen Mehmood Ahmed was replaced as ISI Director General by Lieutenant General Ehsan ul Haq a day after the first US bombs struck Afghanistan in October 2001. Ul Haq purged officers most closely associated with eight years of pro-Taliban policies in Afghanistan, about 15 men. "Within six months ul Haq didn't have anyone who had contacts or linkages with the Taliban," one of the ISI officers said. "It's not a very popular thing in our world, but the rank and file in the ISI has taken part in this struggle against extremism." The new overlords at the ISI scorn the idea that rogue officers unhappy with Musharraf's about-face on Afghanistan could be mixed up with militants.
| "Nope. Nope. Couldn't happen in a million years." |
But there is still a perception among US officials and experts that the ISI has turned a blind eye to Taliban fighters regrouping on Pakistani soil, while coming down hard on Al Qaida and capturing more than 500 suspected members of the group. "These are very superficial observations. They saw black turbans all over Quetta and cried Taliban," the first officer said, deriding recent Western media reports of the Taliban regrouping in the southwestern Pakistani city. But while the battle against homegrown militants preoccupies ISI men for now, India, which Pakistan has fought three times since their independence in 1947, is never forgotten. But for now there is a ceasefire on the so-called Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the nuclear-armed rivals. Kashmiri separatists in Pakistan, some of whom shared training camps with Al Qaida in Afghanistan, now fear Musharraf's commitment to their cause could be waning. While the ISI says it is committed to Pakistan's relationship with the US, the agency is looking with suspicion at warming US ties with India. "We don't want to be upstaged by the relationship developing between the US and India," the officer said. Of particular concern was India's burgeoning defence relationship with Israel. "Israel has become a window for not just weapons, but also Western technology for India," he said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-12-17 |
