Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 21 to 40 of 43

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

  1. #21
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    861

    Default More questions..

    Something is going on IN Pakistan, but what? and why now? http://www.brownpundits.com/2012/02/...istan-council/

    Moderator's Note

    The link failed and website has a notice:
    Brownpundits was parasitized by cialis adds. Have to reinstall. Will do so in the next few days. -Razib
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 02-04-2012 at 10:10 AM. Reason: Add Note

  2. #22
    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

  3. #23
    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.

  4. #24
    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

  5. #25
    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

  6. #26
    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

  7. #27
    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

  8. #28
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    3,169

    Default Spotlight: Secret Pakistan - Double Cross (Part 1)

    Just by chance I found this documentary and watched it on T.V. tonight. Nothing new for those who been following the conflict. They interviewed a number of witnesses on both sides of the story to add credibility to their story on ISI's support for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Part 2 looks interesting, suspect it play next week.

    I don't know if this is available online or not. (Added: not downloading in the UK alas).

    http://www.linktv.org/programs/secre...n-double-cross

    Filmed largely in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this two-part documentary series explores how a supposed ally stands accused by top CIA officers and Western diplomats of causing the deaths of thousands of coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. It is a charge denied by Pakistan's military establishment, but the documentary makers meet serving Taliban commanders who describe the support they get from Pakistan in terms of weapons, training and a place to hide.

    Part 1 of Secret Pakistan investigates signs of duplicity that emerged after 9/11 and disturbing intelligence reports after Britain's forces entered Helmand in 2006.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 01-04-2014 at 03:08 PM. Reason: Add italics text

  9. #29
    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

  10. #30
    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

  11. #31
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default ISI's new boss: the 2nd most powerful Pakistani

    Owen Bennett-Jones, a BBC SME on South Asia, has a short article reviewing Pakistani national security as ISI gets a new Director:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29903400

    He starts with:
    When he takes over the intelligence service ISI, Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar will become one of the two most powerful men in Pakistan, answerable only to the army chief.
    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).
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-07-2014 at 11:24 AM.
    davidbfpo

  12. #32
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    123

    Default

    When he takes over the intelligence service ISI, Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar will become one of the two most powerful men in Pakistan, answerable only to the army chief.
    I don't think that this the case. Both Army chief and ISI director are independently powerful and neither report to each other. Case and point, Kargil fiasco and the 1999 coup.

    Ziauddin has served as Director-General of Pakistan's premier intelligence agency ISI. He was nominated for the post of Pakistan Army chief on 12 Oct 1999 by then-Prime minister Nawaz Sharif after the dismissal of General Pervez Musharraf, who had begun a coup against the government.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziauddin_Butt



    Also, here's a discussion between Hamid Mir and Indian journalists. Couldn't find the relevant section so I am posting it here.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMn6otJ0VP4

  13. #33
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Insight on ISI's Director-General

    This passage is taken from a long, five page commentary (on the main thread for the Pakistani Army, see Post 120 on:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...?t=8282&page=6 )

    General Rizwan Akhtar was commissioned into the 4th Frontier Force Regiment. He is considered a good officer by his peers. His career is also typical of senior officers reaching Lieutenant General rank with usual command, staff and instructional appointments. He commanded the 27th Infantry brigade of the 7th Infantry Division from 2005-07. However, all North Waziristan formations were essentially restricted to their posts and there were no offensive operations. The Army was busy cleaning the South Waziristan and the swamps of North Waziristan were rapidly filling with alligators of all shapes and hues. The Army high command was simply reacting to events on the ground with the result that it lost the support of local population in tribal areas. In 2011-12, he was GOC of the 9th Division operating in South Waziristan. He was Director General (DG) of the Sindh Rangers in 2012-14 and involved in the clean-up operation against criminal elements in the city of Karachi. In October 2014, he was promoted to Lieutenant General rank and appointed DGISI. In 2005 as Brigade commander in North Waziristan, he prepared a detailed report about the threats emanating from North Waziristan and response options. In 2008, while at the US Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Rizwan wrote his course paper on the U.S.-Pakistan trust deficit and the war on terror. He made several recommendations on how to bridge the gap in trust between Pakistan and the USA. Now as DGISI, his position enables him to address both these issues – only time will tell how successful he will be in this endeavor.
    davidbfpo

  14. #34
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default CIA-ISI a good relationship that lasted for a short period

    Taken from a short obituary of Major General Ihtisham Zamir Jafri, who passed away in Rawalpindi on 04 May, 2015, by hamid Hussain (SWC contributor):
    His most important assignment was when he was Deputy Director of Internal Security wing of Counter Intelligence (CI) section of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) from 2001 to 2003. In the aftermath of 11 September, 2001, relation between ISI and CIA was revived on an urgent basis. Ihtisham as DDG Internal Security played an important role in the capture of many high profile foreign terrorists. He was clear in his mind about the threat faced by Pakistan and at that time period ISI was operating in full gear against al-Qaeda. Robert Grenier was then CIA station chief of Islamabad. Deputy station chief was an old Afghan hand with firsthand knowledge of the region and he made a great team with Ihtisham. All the technical data collected by CIA from a variety of sources about specific targets was shared with ISI team in Islamabad. This was then passed on to the provincial heads of ISI in each province. Local intelligence teams further investigated initiated surveillance and then conducted raids to arrest culprits.

    This good relationship that lasted for a short period was due to the fact that at that time United States was only interested in al-Qaeda and focus was only on foreign fighters. Any local fish caught in the net were simply handed over to Pakistanis to take care of them while foreigners were transported o Bagram air base with onward journey to Guantanamo Bay prison. American foot print in Afghanistan was limited to few dozen CIA paramilitary and Special Forces troops and Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba were somewhere in future. In his memoirs, Grenier didn’t use Ihtisham’s name due to personal security risk but now that Ihtisham has left the world, he doesn’t need to be anonymous. Grenier used a pseudo name of “Imran Zaman” using initials of I for Ihtesham and Z for Zamir.
    davidbfpo

  15. #35
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default CIA-ISI relationship after Abbottabad

    In this excerpt from The Great War of our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism, former CIA deputy director Mike Morell describes the relationship with Pakistan after the US raid on Osama Bin Laden.
    davidbfpo

  16. #36
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default New book: Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan

    A retired Indian intelligence officer has reviewed a new book on ISI by a German author: Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan by Hein G. Kiesslin.

    Near the start:
    ... which takes an incisive look into the organisation’s functioning. In Kiessling’s book, the ISI appears as a motley group of fractious and rapacious operatives with shifting domestic and foreign loyalties, whose motto swings between bluster, blackmail, acquiescence and perfidy. The ISI itself will not claim that Kiessling is a hostile writer. He lived in Quetta and Islamabad for 13 years from 1989 to 2002. For the book, Kiessling interviewed most former ISI chiefs..
    Link to the review:http://thewire.in/80819/delving-into...gs-of-the-isi/

    Being published by Hurst (UK) it is on:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Faith-Unity...SI+of+Pakistan

    The publishers have two glowing reviews, one by Bruce Reidel (who has been cited here before IIRC):http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/...ty-discipline/
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-19-2016 at 10:38 PM. Reason: 26,386v
    davidbfpo

  17. #37
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Department 'S': a new book by Steve Coll

    The sub-title of a book review in 'The Guardian':
    This sequel to Ghost Wars might well become the definitive account of the CIA and America’s secret wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
    Here is a sample passage:
    Directorate S, from which the book gets its title, lies buried deep in the bureaucracy of the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), Pakistan’s spy agency. Ensconced thus, the directorate works to “enlarge Pakistan’s sphere of influence in Afghanistan”. It goes about this task, Coll explains, by supplying, arming, training and generally seeking to legitimise the Taliban, the AK-47 toting terrorists who took over Afghanistan in 1992, stringing up decapitated corpses in town squares and shoving women into the confines of their homes. Nobody paid much attention then, and perhaps never would have, had the Taliban not become host to Osama bin Laden.
    Link:https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...e-coll-review?
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 01-27-2018 at 09:12 PM. Reason: 52,093v 26k up since last post
    davidbfpo

  18. #38
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Moderator's pointer

    There are two reviews of a new book on the Indian-Pakistani intelligence relationship and wider issues on the Pakistani Military thread. See:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...777#post211777
    davidbfpo

  19. #39
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Afghanistan: a war of error

    A devastating IMHO review of Steve Coll's book (see Post 37) by Edward Luttwak, although it's real focus is the CIA (the other half of the relationship). There several illustrations why:
    abysmal “tradecraft”...Raymond Davis had a bank statement listing the CIA as his employer in his car when he was arrested by local police in Lahore on January 27, 2011....the linguistic incompetence of almost all CIA analysts that really matters – an incompetence that goes right to the top....secretaries of state and generals seem to have believed that the cultures of Afghanistan are flexible, fluid and malleable..
    He ends with:
    ntelligence is an ancillary function, so it may be that the CIA’s systemic shortcomings are irrelevant to the preordained outcome in Afghanistan. This does not diminish the virtues of Steve Coll’s excellent book – a rem#arkable feat of extended reportage soundly constructed out of telling details and a great number of effective character portraits.
    Link:https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/p...-coll-luttwak/
    davidbfpo

  20. #40
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    13,366

    Default Book Review – Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pak

    Our occasional contributor Hamid Hussain has provided this review.

    Steve Coll’s new book is an excellent account of events of the last two decades in Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Steve has all the credentials to embark on this project. He is one of the best and well-informed journalists and his previous book ‘Ghost Wars’ is the most authentic work of the history of Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) war in Afghanistan in 1980s. For his new book, he has used important American sources from different departments of the US government who engaged with Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has also used some Afghan and few Pakistani sources, but it is mainly an American perspective of the events. There is real need for work on the Pakistani and Afghan perspective which would be a far more difficult task.
    The book is about events in the Af-Pak region and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) gets a lot of attention. Relations between the CIA and ISI are not black and white. In the aftermath of September 11, the majority of ISI officers were leery about too close cooperation with US and especially with the CIA. On the other hand, especially in early phase of 2001-2003, a small cadre of ISI officers viewed foreign fighters as serious threat to Pakistan’s security and wanted to use this opportunity of close cooperation with the CIA to neutralize this threat. In this period of convergence of interest the sole focus was al Qaeda, there was close cooperation and certain degree of trust between the ground operatives of both agencies. In addition to the CIA Islamabad station there were satellite facilities in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar which housed several dozen personnel from different US intelligence agencies especially technical intelligence staff. The CIA used its technical superiority in surveillance, while ISI used its human sources to dismantle al Qaeda in the region.
    There were many thoughtful ISI officers who provided analysis of possible scenarios for US intervention in Afghanistan at a time when everyone was raising Champaign glasses for a victory toast. Some CIA officers agreed with this ISI point of view especially regarding the Pashtun question of Afghanistan. In the winter of 2001, CIA station chief in Islamabad Robert Grenier saw the American dilemma better than many of his colleagues. He agreed with military action but understood Pakistan’s position.
    CIA Director George Tenet’s Chief of Staff John Brennan agreed with some of Grenier’s analysis. However, they were in minority and events unfolded differently. There were others like former Islamabad station chief Milton Bearden who thought that given enough time, the Taliban might give up Bin Laden thus avoiding a military mission, however there were no customers in Washington who were willing to buy this item.
    Predictably, the CIA exaggerated, while ISI downplayed the role of ISI in Afghanistan and the truth is somewhere in the middle. ISI was unclear about the US mission in Afghanistan as well as feeling hurt by the CIA’s last mission and its fallout was not enthusiastic to jump on American wagon in haste. The Director General of Analysis (DG-A) at ISI then Major General Javed Alam (later Lieutenant General) admitted that less than a dozen ISI officers were working in Afghanistan prior to American invasion. He also disclosed that most of the Pakistanis who went to Afghanistan to defend the collapsing Taliban regime in the winter of 2001 were from Southern Punjab. He wryly commented that most of them died and ‘they got their just deserts’.
    Later, mistrust between Pakistan and US widened and involved all the agencies. ISI had some influence in Afghanistan and some of its policies contributed to the instability in that country. However, to blame ISI for all American follies in Afghanistan is incorrect and unfair. ISI is a huge bureaucracy with a very mixed past. It is not a monolithic entity and there is wide range of opinion amongst senior and mid-level officers. The aura of playing in the ‘big league’ gives the agency a clout in internal and external policies but it comes with a price that it is also blamed for sins of others.
    Steve provides details of the genuine difference of opinion on policy matters as well as turf wars of US government agencies. This provides a window into the US decision making process and the impact of institutional and personal friction on policies on the ground. We tend to generalize government policies for easy comprehension and ignore these subtle changes. Steve provides this perspective as far as the US decision making process is concerned. There is no serious attempt to understand the similar case of Pakistan. In my own work on the Pakistan army, I found similar challenges of Pakistani decision makers. The Army brass was reluctant to share details with civilian governments, especially when Asif Ali Zardari was President. In the army, there was friction between officers involved in operations against militants and intelligence officers. Professionally competent and confident officers took charge of the operations and realized that some ISI policies were detrimental to ongoing operations. These officers relied less on ISI and kept intelligence officers at arm’s length. On the other hand, officers who were less confident relied more on ISI. I found the former lot much more successful than the later.
    There is a small error in caption of a 2005 picture about Pakistan on first page of pictures. Caption wrongly identifies two Pakistani army officers flanking Colonel David Smith as Lieutenant General Tariq Majid and Major General Asif Akhtar. The officers are then Lieutenant General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Lieutenant General Muhammad Yusuf.
    This book should be on the reading list of anyone interested in the Af-Pak region. It is summary of major events of the last two decades that affected Pakistan and Afghanistan and Steve takes us on this journey as an informed guide. It covers events as seen from the tall citadels of power of Washington to individuals who do the “heavy lifting like mules in a big caravan.” For a thoughtful reader, it is a sober and humbling reading of limits of power.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 08-28-2018 at 12:17 PM. Reason: 62,060v today, up 10k since January '18.
    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
  •