When was isi created

The Biden administration has taken a curious lack of interest in Pakistan. Routine contacts with the army, diplomats, and spies have continued but President Biden has ignored the country. Khan is the elected leader of the sixth most populous country in the world with a growing nuclear weapons arsenal. The fiasco in Kabul should be a wake-up call to get involved. Related Content Afghanistan Will Afghanistan become a terrorist safe haven again?

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Friend's name. Friend's email. First Name. Last Name. Phone number. Please provide more details about your request. Please log in or register to continue. Registration is free and requires only your email address. Email required. The ISI not only kept tabs on the Bhutto family when they were in the country but also during their stay abroad.

In one instance a Pakistani surveillance team attempted to keep track of Benazir even while she was in political exile in London.

She then telephoned Scotland Yard and complained about a car-load of men waiting outside her house. Only after that the Pakistani intelligence ceased to intimidate her in London. A former Punjab Governor the late Lt General Ghulam Jillani Khan himself once reportedly expressed apprehensions about being under surveillance during the Zia regime. General Ghulam Jillani Khan was a father figure credited with nurturing the ISI rise from a peripheral to a powerful organisation in Pakistan.

Given his intimate knowledge of ISI's policy directives he may not have had misplaced fears. In a genuine democracy symbolised by committed party workers and a free press the role of an intelligence agency tends to get diluted due to the active role of democratic institutions. Similarly in a 'limited' or 'guided' democracy which prevails in Pakistan the converse is true. Pakistan since creation faces a problem of political leadership which can be traced to the colonial rule.

During the British Indian regime local influentials proved to be suitable candidates for elections to the provincial assemblies. It was an external element in the provincial politics. Hence provincial political leaders and bureaucrats developed a degree of suspicion towards the Muslim League. In the process bureaucracy controlled the flow of funds rather than the political party.

These factors enabled the bureaucracy to eclipse the political leadership and assert itself in the first decade of independence. Subsequently power shifted from the bureaucracy to the military which then assumed the mantle of leadership for almost two and a half decades.

On account of these factors the development of democracy remained dwarfed in the country. In the absence of democracy there was no scope for political parties to develop into strong organisations. In the sense that a politically well-managed party voted to power would depend on its workers for information about political, economic and social developments around the country.

Similarly democracy is also synonymous with a free press which provides the pulse of the nation and amounts to an information channel for the government. Moreover, the hallmark of news media being timely and credible news-reportage, it provides the best source of information to the leadership as a tool for governance. Thus the lack of democracy for almost two and a half decades has denied the nation two important information channels, namely, the political parties and the press, which are so necessary for good governance.

The Pakistani generals during their two and a half decades of military rule did not opt for these democratic sources of information available to them. Instead they had to rely on their intelligence agency as the sole source of information as a tool for governance.

While the military has directly ruled the country for almost half its existence earlier it has also indirectly ruled during the other half through its intelligence agency. Evidently the military never wanted to release its hold on political power and preferred to remain a 'back seat driver' guiding or limiting the evolution of democracy in the country.

Moreover the generals were keen on supporting a friendly political regime that would agree to their terms and conditions in running the government. The intelligence agency owing to its close relationship with the military government was therefore able to emerge into a power centre in the country. During this period there was an uneasy relationship between the military and the political leadership when the country last experienced a decade of democracy.

While the military did not directly intervene in the political process the generals used the ISI as a lever to manipulate the course of politics to suit their interests. Essentially the generals wanted a civilian government that would not curtail their power and to that extent such democracy came to be termed 'limited', 'guided' or Islamic democracy.

The ISI was variously used to prop up friendly political persona who enjoyed good relations with the military leadership and conversely to minimise the chances of success for a hostile leader through the creation of unfavourable conditions. The ISI under a civilian government had to tread with care and caution so as not to embarrass the government.

In the post-Zia period the military as an institution had become unpopular among the people just like it had earned a bad name for itself following the partition of Pakistan post The military after a loss of face on both occasions therefore preferred to withdraw to their cantonments.

During these 'democratic' interregnums the ISI political cell always remained active to ensure that the elected leaders did not pose a threat to the power of the military leadership. This threat to the generalship could emanate from an attempt to interfere with areas that were declared military turf, like for instance the Kashmir policy or nuclear policy. During the post-Zia period former President Ghulam Ishaq Khan's dismissal of then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from office on August 6, was a significant development highlighting the role of an intelligence agency in national politics.

The reasons officially stated were charges of corruption, failure to work with the provinces and attempts to question the powers of the armed forces. However Benazir said that the ISI was involved against her government which could be analysed in terms of the power of information.

The ISI as the 'eyes' and 'ears' of the military would have had the power to influence the President to take a decision against Benazir. These conditions included: a to continue the late General Zia's Afghan policy b allow General Mirza Aslam Beg and Lt General Hamid Gul to continue in their appointments as Chief of Army Staff and Director General ISI respectively c not to depress the defence budget d not to initiate any accountability proceedings against army personnel.

After Benazir became the Prime Minister she had a problem with the ISI in the sense that an agency which was working against her till the other day now formed part of her government. She associated the agency with her father's judicial execution and saw it as a repressive arm of the military which therefore amounted to an attitudinal problem towards the ISI. In tune with this mindset one of her first moves was to sack Brigadier retd Imtiaz from the ISI and close down its political division in early She also set up a committee under a former Air Chief Marshal Zulfiquar Ali Khan to review the functioning of intelligence agencies in the country.

The objective of this exercise also aimed at a reorientation of the ISI exclusively for external intelligence and the IB for internal intelligence roles in the country. However Benazir was out of office before the implementation of these reforms on the intelligence front were possible. Benazir Bhutto strengthened the role of the Intelligence Bureau for intelligence-gathering within the country in order to marginalise the participation of the ISI in this self-appointed mission.

This reflected in the IB's budget increase to four times the existing figure. Benazir created 20 senior positions at the joint director level to strengthen the management structure in the organisation. She increased the numerical strength of the subordinate-level operational staff by thrice the existing level and new IB cells were created at the tehsil headquarters and at all the police stations.

Another feature was computerisation of the IB offices around the country. The IB was activated against terrorism and narcotics related crimes by participating in liaison with foreign investigative agencies. Importantly, the IB charter expanded to include support for Taliban operations in Afghanistan. In post-Zia Pakistan, intelligence agencies were effectively used to topple governments. One such case pertains to how an intelligence agency was used to remove then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from office.

It has been reported that on July 17, an intelligence agency clandestinely recorded the. The room was bugged by the intelligence agency and the two leaders in the course of their private meeting at Islamabad discussed, among other issues, the possibility of mutual troop reduction.

Apparently, Benazir was supposed to have agreed in principle to the proposal. In order to convince the Opposition and obtain their backing for the need to destabilise the government these tapes were reportedly played to them. Rahimullah Yusufzai writes in the Newsline of January that the ruling party and the opposition were involved in big time spying against each other during the PPP's eventful 20 month rule.

The deal also assured that one of the defectors would be made a Federal Minister if the IJI proved successful in its venture.

The attempt however proved to be abortive in the first attempt on November 1, when the vote of no confidence could go through. Thereafter they were successful the next year in the next attempt to do so. She said that the ISI influences the Army through the power of information. While the Army respected her, its leadership was briefed by the ISI and therefore went against her interests. The caretaker government had appointed Major General Mohammad Assad Durrani after the dismissal of the previous regime.

The next logical step was to reduce the importance of the IB which Benazir had strengthened as a counter-weight to the ISI. News18 has already reported how Pakistan had failed Taliban multiple times in the past. The viral audio was later deleted from Facebook. Tags pakistan Taliban.