Nota, and semirza, I'm afraid both of you do not understand what the ISI is and how it operates. MI falls in line with the military hierarchy and it's official objective is to gather intelligence for military operations and enemy activities across the border. All official MI people are from the military, while ISI has many civilians, ex-military and current military, diplomats, mullahs, jihadis in its ranks.
Despite the secrecy of ISI, there is still enough information available in the public domain that tells us that the ISI works in semi-independents cells and directorates. The counter terrorist directorate that works with CIA to capture Taliban terrorists has no knowledge of what the infamous "S" directorate is up to that works with taliban, lashakr-e-taiba, al qaeda, lashkar-jhangvi etc.
ISI was created to be the controller of the jihadi assets and in case of Indian or Soviet invasion its goal was to disperse (Aslam Beg interview on this matter is good reading) among the population and be untraceable to fight guerrilla war. This network still exists today and has been used effectively by taliban to train, equip and rest in ISI safe houses. The jihadi charities, the hospitals providing care for wounded talibs, the weapon supply line, the funds being transferred from gulf and from criminals activities within pakistan to taliban are all running openly and under the guidance or knowledge of various ISI cells.
How else do you all think the taliban can survive for so long in Afghanistan or Pakistan? Only someone very naive will think this can exist without any official sanction. These are open secrets, but just not reported on to often in media.
It is not at all rogue element, As Shuja Pasha controls the overall direction, but each independent ISI unit has control over tactical matters and so it is very much a reality that they may work against each other from time to time. But that's not a big problem, as this way there is always plausible deniablity for helping in terrorist attacks (Major Rana who helped in Mumbai attacks for example). And this allows them to still work with CIA and take out elements no longer following ISI set strategic goals (Mullah Baradar, Abdullah Mehsud, Mullah Dadullah etc.) and also receive funding from CIA at the same time while keeping allied with jihadi groups as needed.
Some jihadi groups have indeed seen through ISI duplicity and have gone against ISI, but even then they ONLY attack the counter terrorist units of ISI, not the other directorate, as they know they have to rely on ISI in the end for sustaining operations.
Posted 2 years ago on 18 Apr 2010 19:07
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