The killing of Osama bin Laden has put the ISI in a bad fix.

Was it incompetence or complicity or both? Ranjit Bhushan looks at the world’s most dreaded spy agency

In 2002, reputed French philosopher and writer Bernard- Henry Levy, purveyor of hot spots around the world, in his classic and real-life detective account ‘Who killed Daniel Pearl’ draws an alarming, well-informed and positively sinister picture of what was happening inside Pakistan’s secret service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani

This most acclaimed of European writers – at great personal risk – retraced his steps back to the route which took American journalist Daniel Pearl to his hideous death in Pakistan, now as it turns out, at the hands of ISI operatives who had strong links with the al-Qaeda.

That trip to Pakistan took him to macabre, heavily-armed seminaries, to evening parties organised by the ISI top brass and a level of access in Pakistan which only a westerner enjoys. In Levy’s stark view, “Pakistan is the biggest rogue of all the rogue states of today. I assert that what is taking form there, between Islamabad and Karachi, is a black hole compared to which Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad was an obsolete weapons dump.’’

The killing of Osama bin Laden has put the ISI in a bad fix. Was it incompetence or complicity or both? Ranjit Bhushan looks at the world’s most dreaded spy agency Run with the hare, hunt with the hound The slaying of the world’s most hunted terrorist in the quintessential cantonment town of Abbottabad has shifted the spotlight back on the ways of what is now the planet’s most dreaded spy agency, the ISI.

Most analysts believe that the presence of Laden in a garrison town could not have escaped the attention of the ISI. “It is not possible to get accommodation in any cantonment area without the prior permission of military authorities. So to say that the ISI did not know of his whereabouts is ridiculous,’’ says former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan G Parthasarathy.

While Pakistani ISI and army officials have declined to offer a public comment on the US covert operation, the constant US accusation that Pakistan was playing a duplicitous game is bound to find resonance across the world.

Yousaf Raza Gilani and Ahmed Shuja Pasha

Why then did the ISI ditch Osama by not tipping him off about the movement of US special forces before the attack was launched? “Who says ISI ditched Osama? The US jammed all radars in the area and the Pakistani spies were caught napping. Left to themselves, the ISI would have whisked away Osama to safety,’’ Parthasarathy asserts.

For the first time in many years, Pakistan’s spy agency is in trouble and under global scrutiny. If its radars were jammed by the US Special Forces, then it reflects incompetence; if they were not, then the ISI stands charged of complicity and playing a dangerously dual game.

HYDRA HEADED Joint Intelligence X (JIX) It serves as the secretariat which coordinates and provides administrative support to the other ISI wings and field organisations. It also prepares intelligence estimates and threat assessments. Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB) One of the largest and most powerful divisions of the ISI, which monitors political intelligence. The JIB consists of three subsections, with one sub-section devoted to operations involving India, anti-terrorism and VIP security. Joint Counter Intelligence Bureau (JCIB) Responsible for overseeing intelligence operations in central Asia, south Asia, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Israel and Russia. It also conducts field surveillance of Pakistani diplomats stationed abroad, and if need be, monitors foreign diplomats as well. Joint Intelligence/North (JIN) Conduct ISI operations for Jammu and Kashmir, including monitoring Indian forces deployed within the Kashmir Valley. Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM) Responsible for covert offensive intelligence operations and war time espionage operations. Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau (JSIB) It includes Deputy Directors for wireless, monitoring and photos, operates a chain of signal intelligence collection stations, and provides communication support to its operatives. It also collects intelligence through monitoring of communications channels of neighbouring countries. It has a chain of stations that track and collect intelligence signals along the Indo-Pakistani border and in Kashmir. A sizeable number of staff is from the Army Signal Corps. It is believed that it has its units deployed in Islamabad, Quetta, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Joint Intelligence Technical Division (JIT) Not much is known about this particular section of the ISI. However, it is widely believed that JTI/JIT include a separate explosives section and a chemical warfare section.

But there is a good chance that the ISI was caught completely unawares. A day after the killing of Osama bin Laden and under tremendous pressure from all around, the agency actually issued a statement expressing its “great embarrassment’’ in not being able to detect the presence of the world’s biggest terrorist so close to its precincts.

Pakistan ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, told reporters that “intelligence failures are not unique to the ISI. We will inquire into the causes of what happened but it’s really important not to turn it into any allegation of complicity.’’

The ISI website declares itself to be “one of the best and very well organised intelligence agencies in the world.” Founded in 1948 after the partition of India when two nation-states of India and Pakistan came into being, it started off as a police agency, whose job was to collect and analyse intelligence.

But the gradual increase in the intervention of the military, which has ruled Pakistan for the better part of its 64-year history, in the country’s internal affairs and the 1965 war with India, morphed it into a military institution which has many faces.

Its primary objectives are not only to safeguard Pakistani interests, but also reinforce Pakistan’s power base in the region. The agency, with its coordinated attacks on India during the last two decades, has done just that. That the ISI has virtually no oversight in terms of civilian control in Pakistan was best brought out when the new civilian government in 2008 tried to bring the agency under its thumb but had to embarrassingly backtrack within hours of announcing the decision. The critical question is this: will the ISI be reined in under such global pressure?

Says security expert Ajai Sahni, “There is no doubt at all that there is tremendous pressure on the ISI at the moment and this pressure has actually been accumulating since the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai.”

He adds: “Osama bin Laden was living in a safe house provided by the ISI. But the Americans are aware that to take their war on terror to its natural conclusion, they would need Pakistan, which at this stage is the only supply route to get to Afghanistan. So, unless alternative routes are found to get to Kabul, ISI will continue to get US patronage.’’ In the post-Osama scenario, it would be interesting to see which way the worm turns.

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