Results 1 to 20 of 43

Thread: Pakistan: Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) - a collection

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Montreal
    Posts
    1,602

    Default Pakistan: Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) - a collection

    Moderator's Note

    This thread has been re-named to reflect the merging of three threads and that it is a collection on ISI (ends).

    The Role of the ISI in Counterterrorism and Pakistan’s Political Landscape
    A Teleconference featuring Pakistani Voices

    Wednesday, October 15, 2008
    9:00-10:00am

    Brigadier Shaukat Qadir, retired Army brigadier, former vice president and founder of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), and weekly columnist for the Daily Times—where he is authoring a two part series on restructuring the ISI.

    Shaheen Sehbai, Group Editor of The News International and former foreign correspondent for The Dawn in Washington D.C.

    Dr. Hassan Abbas, Research Fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Managing the Atom and International Security Program, former government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995–1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999–2000), and author of the blog Watandost (http://watandost.blogspot.com/) on Pakistan-related affairs.

    Moderated by Karin von Hippel, Co-Director, PCR Project, CSIS

    RSVP to pcrproject@csis.org

    Center for Strategic and International Studies
    4th floor Conference room
    1800 K Street NW
    Washington, DC

    Visit http://www.pcrproject.com for publications, commentary, and more information about our work.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-07-2014 at 11:23 AM. Reason: Add note

  2. #2
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Pakistan: Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) - a collection

    An Indian article from the Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses (October 2011), by Rana Banerji, a former senior intelligence officer with RAW; following a hat tip from Hamid Hussain, our occasional contributor and for the moment this deserves its own thread.

    Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) feature regularly in posts, either in the South Asia arena or in OEF, but IMO rarely in such detail.

    Hamid has added his commentary, with his text in red and is on the attachment - alas minus the charts, diagrams etc.

    He starts with:
    This is one of the most comprehensive articles written about ISI. It is an Indian perspective but not an amateur one. Respected author probably has access to database kept by Indian intelligence agencies about their rival intelligence agency of Pakistan. Author has used Mr. Shuja Nawaz’s encyclopedic work on Pakistan army and also used some of my own very limited work on Pakistan army.
    Link to article:http://idsa.in/system/files/jds_5_4_rbanerji.pdf

    The article is very comprehensive, the charts are a bonus.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    davidbfpo

  3. #3
    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    SOCAL
    Posts
    2,152

    Default

    Thanks for pulling this one in David. I have wracked my brain for a long time to be able to understand why ISI does what it does. I haven't started this, but I imagine that it will only stand to expand my base of knowledge significantly.

  4. #4
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Pakistani intelligence: the very first years

    Hamid Hussain our regular contributor has written a short paper 'The Beginnings – Early Days of Intelligence in Pakistan' and is attached.

    Fascinating to see an Australian soldier played such a role; the Notes do have a link to his on-line biography. I was aware that a British General Gracey served as the first Army CinC, but not that an Australian general was Chief of Staff.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    davidbfpo

  5. #5
    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Latitude 17° 5' 11N, Longitude 120° 54' 24E, altitude 1499m. Right where I want to be.
    Posts
    3,137

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    Fascinating to see an Australian soldier played such a role; the Notes do have a link to his on-line biography. I was aware that a British General Gracey served as the first Army CinC, but not that an Australian general was Chief of Staff.
    I believe the same General, Dougles Gracey, commanded the British expeditionary force that took control of Saigon at the close of WW2, and played a pivotal role in the restoration of French rule. He had a hand in a fair bit of history, though I don't suppose we should blame him for the outcomes.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

  6. #6
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    I believe the same General, Dougles Gracey, commanded the British expeditionary force that took control of Saigon at the close of WW2, and played a pivotal role in the restoration of French rule. He had a hand in a fair bit of history, though I don't suppose we should blame him for the outcomes.
    Dayuhan,

    Yes General Gracey took his Indian Army division to Saigon in 1945, which IIRC has a mention / debate elsewhere here and it is a complicated period of history. The division then went to the Dutch East Indies (to become Indonesia) and had its toughest ever fighting against the nationalists, with some unofficial Japanese help (deserters and weapons) at the port of Surabayu (?). There is a good book on the Saigon episode, The First Indo-China War by Peter Dunn, pub. 1985 (which has disappeared from my bookshelves) and on:http://www.amazon.com/First-Vietnam-...5879757&sr=1-4
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 01-04-2014 at 02:18 PM.
    davidbfpo

  7. #7
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    11,074

    Default Pakistan: Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) - An Analytical Overview

    Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-10-2013 at 10:35 AM. Reason: Copied here

  8. #8
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default U-Boats and ISI: what!

    The SWJ article linked above, by two Swiss authors, led to Carl commenting:
    This is quite an excellent monograph and I congratulate the authors. It does two very good things.

    First, it gathers together and presents in one place an overwhelming body of evidence confirming Pakistani perfidy. It is sort of a one stop shop when looking for references and evidence of murderous double dealing by the Pakistani government.

    Second, the authors don't mince words. The "Pakistani establishment" takes American money and uses it to support people who kill American and NATO troops, blowing off their legs and genitals among other things. They kill Americans. And without Pakistani help, Taliban & Co could not be in the favorable position they are now in. I wish we could be so plain spoken.
    That we have allowed this to go on for a decade will forever be a puzzlement to historians. It is as if Western Approaches Command had had liaison officers from the U-boat Waffe attached to and working closely with them to coordinate activities and distribute Lend-Lease aid (to the U-boat Waffe); and Churchill kept wondering why the merchantmen continued getting sunk.
    Pakistan and ISI often appear in posts, not always in South Asia threads, but the U-Boat comparison is - well - powerful.
    davidbfpo

  9. #9
    Council Member Firn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    1,297

    Default

    I rarely comment on this stuff but I posted once a rather similar comment which I want to reframe.

    To me it seems that the ISI suffers from a clear case of groupthink and institutional imperative. They seem to be so impressed by the way they are playing the US&Co that they focus all their energy to do so while they are arguably harming their countries 'true' interest very much. In short they do the wrong thing in such a smart&successful way that they must be congratulating how clever they are. We will see if the slipped dogs of civil war can still be controlled...
    ... "We need officers capable of following systematically the path of logical argument to its conclusion, with disciplined intellect, strong in character and nerve to execute what the intellect dictates"

    General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944);
    Speech at the Kriegsakademie, 1935

  10. #10
    Council Member carl's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Denver on occasion
    Posts
    2,460

    Default

    David:

    We could carry the analogy further with the U-boat Waffe liaison officers giving up an Italian submarine occasionally, Coastal Command VLR Liberators (the disruptive technology of the day) going after Russian subs in the Baltic and maybe Brooke making public pronouncements about how good a buddy Doenitz was.

    I really think what we have been doing in Af-PAK, for 12 YEARS (!), is as mad as the impossible to conceive analogy I presented.

    We know and have known how insane this situation has been for years. The monograph does an excellent job of pulling all the open source evidence together. The problem may be that we may never see official documents confirming how bad the situation has been. Computer files may be a lot easier to 'disappear' than paper. The powers that be have a huge incentive to erase official evidence about how their impregnable personal pride, naivete and arrogance has played right into the hands of the grifters in 'Pindi, and how that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of Americans and thousands and thousands of Afghans.

    Firn: The thing that interests, and enrages, me is our behavior. The feudal elites/Pak Army/ISI are destroying their country for their own short term benefit and nothing can stop them now. Ironically I think, us being such fools has robbed Pakistan of any chance it may have had. If we had stopped their game 10 years ago they may have been discredited and maybe Pakistan would have had a chance. Not now though. The thing with the game they run on us is they run it on us. It can only work on such titanic fools such as the American elites. Nobody else has the proper combination of narcissistic pride and ignorance. It is no accomplishment besting a fool but they won't remember that and will have very great trouble because the guys in their neighborhood are no fools.

    But like I said, the thing that interests me is our behavior. It is beyond reason.

    (David: I like my analogy but I am not sure how many people get it on this side of the pond. There may not be many people familiar with the Battle of the Atlantic anymore.)
    Last edited by carl; 04-10-2013 at 02:25 PM.
    "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene

  11. #11
    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Latitude 17° 5' 11N, Longitude 120° 54' 24E, altitude 1499m. Right where I want to be.
    Posts
    3,137

    Default "Leaked" ISAF report on Taliban & ISI

    From the BBC...

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16821218

    Pakistan helping Afghan Taliban - Nato

    The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.

    The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people....

    ...The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report - on the state of the Taliban - fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the ISI and the Taliban.

    The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.

    It notes: "Pakistan's manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly"....

    ...It quotes a senior al-Qaeda detainee as saying: "Pakistan knows everything. They control everything. I can't [expletive] on a tree in Kunar without them watching."

    "The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad."...

    ...Despite Nato's strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military...
    It goes on a bit. The report is of course open to all manner of interpretation and challenge. Doesn't sound a terribly optimistic read by any account.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

  12. #12
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Stafford, VA
    Posts
    262

    Default Lesson

    If the US lacks sufficient power to persuade, induce, or coerce Pakistan into a modified strategic outlook that does not include the Taliban or one of it many affiliates or the will to utilize sufficient power; how can one reasonably expect the US to persuade, induce, or coerce Iran into a decision not to seek nuclear weapons?

  13. #13
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default A pretty massive indictment

    This report was discussed today on BBC Radio Four's PM programme, with Bruce Reidel and he stated:
    It is an extraordinary document..with quite good vintage wine...we've known for a long time that Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban...it is a pretty massive indictment of Pakistan support for the Afghan Taliban...
    Link to podcast, his remarks are 40:40 to 43:30:http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01bb7jy

    Even the Daily Telegraph comment is pithy:
    ..There is little in the report which marries with Nato claims the insurgency's momentum has been broken.
    Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ommanders.html
    davidbfpo

  14. #14
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Posts
    1,457

    Default

    It's groundhog day folks. From the December 24, 2006, Los Angeles Times:

    Confidential documents obtained by The Times show that for at least two years, U.S. military intelligence agencies have warned American commanders that Taliban militants were arming and training in Pakistan, then slipping into Afghanistan with the help of Pakistani border control officers....

    Intelligence warnings have for months documented U.S. worries about Pakistan's role in providing a haven for Afghan insurgents.

    A map prepared in early 2005 for a U.S. Army Special Operations task force warned that officers at Pakistani border control posts were "assisting insurgent attacks." It showed militants' infiltration routes from Pakistan, several of which crossed from North Waziristan to Khowst province, where members of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network who have long been based in Afghanistan are still active.

    On Jan. 19 of this year, a report from the U.S. military's Joint Intelligence Task Force said that Al Qaeda continued "to provide expertise and resources, such as weapons, training, and fighters to anti-coalition groups including the Taliban" and its allies, among which is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami militia.

    In a separate report the same month, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, identified six eastern provinces, including Khowst, as "Al Qaeda strongholds."

    "These locations allow Al Qaeda members easy entrance and exit over the Afghanistan/Pakistan border," it added.

    The document identified Al Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan as Khalid Habib, and said "Al Qaeda maintains close ties to the Taliban and has received technical support and training from Pakistani militant groups."

    It warned that armed Afghans, Arabs and Pakistanis who might attack U.S. forces were in Afghanistan. And it said that Pakistan's ISI directorate posed "a HIGH intelligence threat to U.S. and Coalition forces."
    There have been dozens and dozens of "leaks" about this going back to at least 2006 and I remember the first serious reports from way, way back in 2003. It's been six-plus freaking years of this crap and it's still reported in halting, serious tones by "officials" as if this were some great revelation. That Pakistani's must be laughing their asses off - "look at the Americans - they've known for years we're helping the Taliban and all they seem to do is complain to the media."

    /rant off. Time to pour myself a drink.
    Supporting "time-limited, scope limited military actions" for 20 years.

  15. #15
    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    3,189

    Default

    ...and that's why having nukes is so attractive.

    Without them, you run risk of getting even your fertilizer factories bombed - with them you can do whatever you want, even house the U.S.'s arch enemy.
    You may even get subsidies by the U.S. in the meantime.

    Seriously, who could have made this up?

  16. #16
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    11,074

    Default The Pakistani Godfather: The Inter-Services Intelligence and the Afghan Taliban 1994-

    The Pakistani Godfather: The Inter-Services Intelligence and the Afghan Taliban 1994-2010

    Entry Excerpt:



    --------
    Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
    This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

  17. #17
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    861

    Default Review: Directorate S

    A review of Directorate S from Major Amin, now up at Brownpundits.

    https://www.brownpundits.com/2019/02...directorate-s/

    Excerpt:
    What we have is an interesting narrative but no subtle analysis. Passing references to US lack of strategic insight but no details.

    What Coll fails to admit or openly state is that the entire US war in Afghanistan was an exercise in massive self deception . Since the US lacked the strategic resolution to confront the Pakistani state , it fooled itself and its public with vague entities like Al Qaeda, which never was a serious player in Af Pak.

    Coll refuses to see the hard and harsh picture that 90 % US casualties in actual fighting were caused by ISI proxies and not Al Qaeda.

    It is a harsh admission that whole nations and states and this includes a super power like USA can go on deceiving themselves and their public and Steve Coll's massive and exhaustive gargantuan book offers no definite conclusions.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 02-07-2019 at 04:48 PM. Reason: Moved to the ISI thread from the Taliban thread. 65,292v today

  18. #18
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default A 2nd Book Review: Pakistan Adrift by Asad Durrani, former ISI Director General

    Amil Khan, aka 'Londonistani', has a review of Assad Durrani's book in a recent Chatham House journal and he ends with:
    Ultimately, Pakistan Adriftoffers a rare glimpse into the mechanics of power in the upper echelons of the country’s decision-making apparatus, and it is tantalizing to think how the Troika is reacting to the premiership of Imran Khan, who brings with him a popular appeal that is sure to unsettle the balance between the main parties.
    Link to a two pg. PDF:https://www.chathamhouse.org/system/...mil%20Khan.pdf
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-22-2019 at 01:52 PM. Reason: 66,629v today
    davidbfpo

Similar Threads

  1. NATO's Afghanistan Challenge
    By Ray in forum OEF - Afghanistan
    Replies: 74
    Last Post: 05-13-2011, 04:11 AM
  2. "Processing Intelligence Collection: Learning or Not?"
    By Tracker275 in forum Intelligence
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 02-21-2011, 12:46 AM
  3. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 11-25-2008, 10:28 PM
  4. Relationship between the political system and causes of war (questions)
    By AmericanPride in forum RFIs & Members' Projects
    Replies: 56
    Last Post: 03-30-2008, 09:16 PM
  5. Intelligence Collection and Sharing
    By SWJED in forum Intelligence
    Replies: 30
    Last Post: 12-03-2007, 03:22 AM

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •