Official: ISI Fan Club

[asaad-ul-islam]

The ISI's Supervisory Role in Assam
M Amarjeet Singh
November 07, 2006

Apart from aiding and abetting terrorism in Kashmir, Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), has also been fully engaged in building terror infrastructures in the rest of India, including in the Northeast, which has long been infested with multiple insurgencies. This attempt to fish in the troubled waters of the Northeast poses a formidable challenge to India's integrity and security.

Over the past several years, the Indian security establishment has gathered sufficient evidence to show that the ISI - with an active network in Bangladesh - has been engaged in sponsoring violence and unrest in this part of India, by way of supplying sophisticated weaponry, tactical advice and imparting guerrilla training to several militant groups in the region.

The sprawling Pakistani High Commission in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka has emerged as the "nerve centre" of ISI activities, especially with regards to networking and co-ordinating with trusted agents and linkmen for the purported objective of building a terror network in India's Eastern sector. In doing so, it had been assisting and also sponsoring terror camps in Bangladesh where Indian militants obtain extensive guerrilla training. During the 7th Indo-Bangladesh Home Secretary-level talks held in Dhaka in August 2006, the Union Home Secretary V. K. Duggal pointed to the existence of 172 camps belonging to Indian militant groups and detailed how the militants were supported by Bangladesh-based fundamentalist outfits like Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) sponsored by the ISI, with money coming from Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia.

In Assam, the growing separatist movement coupled with its demographic profile, which includes among others a large number of foreign nationals, has created a vulnerable constituency for exploitation by the intelligence agencies of Bangladesh and Pakistan. Besides assisting major militant groups like the United Liberation front of Asom (ULFA), the ISI's nexus with several home grown Islamic fundamentalist outfits like the Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) have also come to light in the recent past.

The ISI's activities in Assam, according to the statement of the then Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, made on the floor of the Assam Legislative Assembly in Dispur on April 6, 2000 includes:

Promoting indiscriminate violence in the state by providing active support to the local militant outfits.

Creating new militant outfits along ethnic and communal lines by instigating ethnic and religious groups.

Supply of explosives and sophisticated arms to various militant groups.

Causing sabotage of oil pipelines and other installations, communication lines, railways and roads.

Promoting fundamentalism and militancy among local Muslim youth by instigating them in the name of 'jihad'.

Promoting communal tension between Hindu and Muslim citizens by way of false and inflammatory propaganda.
Available evidence suggests that the ULFA-ISI nexus began way back in the early 1990s, since when the agency has been imparting specialised arms training to ULFA cadres. On July 25, 2006, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, S. Raghupathy, confirmed on the floor of the Lok Sabha that the ULFA has links with the ISI. Earlier on June 15, 2006, the Assam Police had claimed that ULFA cadres acquired training in explosives in Pakistan under foreign experts. Disclosing this, the Assam Inspector General of Police (Special Branch) Khagen Sharma said that over a dozen such trained cadres have sneaked into the State. He asserted: "The ULFA sent six boys to Pakistan in 2002 and 16 more in 2004, and all received training in explosives and bombs. They are trained in the use of RDX, TNT, PETN and other dangerous explosives by some foreign agencies which also supply them these materials." On May 15, 2005, a team of Assam and Meghalaya Police arrested an alleged ISI agent, Mohammed Hasifuddin, from an unspecified place along the Assam-Meghalaya border and confiscated over 400 gelatine sticks from him. He was alleged to have supplied explosives to ULFA for the Independence Day bomb blast at Dhemaji town in Assam on August 15, 2004 which killed altogether 17 persons, including 16 school children. The ISI, according to the Assam Police, had procured several different passports for Paresh Barua, the Commander-in-Chief of ULFA, in different names.

In association with Bangladesh's Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the ISI has been recruiting unemployed youth from Assam and training them for 'jihad' in Bangladesh. This was recently confirmed by the Inspector General of the Border Security Force, J. P. Sinha, when he told the Indian Express on September 1, 2006 that the ISI and the DGFI "are recruiting youths from Assam and training them for jihad in Bangladesh. After the completion of training they are sent back to Assam for fomenting trouble in the north-eastern region." The earlier arrest of a MULTA militant, Nasiruddin Haq, by the Border Security Force from Gitaldah in Coochbehar district of West Bengal in October 2004, had revealed the fact that the ISI was funding MULTA to purchase arms. He further confessed that at least 300 MULTA cadres had already trained in Bangladesh since 1996 and were working in Assam for the outfit.

Above all, the ISI is also responsible for pumping huge sums of counterfeit currency to subvert the Indian economy. Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province, has, of late, emerged as a major centre for printing and circulating fake Indian currency notes (FICNs). Highlighting the ISI's role in this racket, a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) note reportedly sent to the finance ministry stated that, "FICNs are pushed into India by ISI through all possible channels using smugglers, underworld gangs, terrorists and general air/rail passengers." The note further said that the fake currency notes were sent to India through 'carrier' air passengers who were paid between Rs. 5,000 and 10,000 for carrying a consignment from Dubai and other Gulf countries. Highlighting this phenomenon, the September 18, 2006 issue of the Times of India noted that, according to unspecified intelligence sources, Barak Valley and Karimganj in Assam and Kailasahar and Dharam Nagar in Tripura have become the new outposts where contraband is dumped.

An investigation report of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Department of the Assam Government had revealed that persons suspected to be linked to the ISI have been appointed in the State Social Welfare Department. The report, which was reportedly completed in 2005, was made public by the opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) on September 6, 2006. Meanwhile, the Intelligence Bureau and the Assam Police busted a network of ISI operatives who were allegedly passing on highly classified defence documents to officials of the Pakistan Embassy in New Delhi. This follows the arrest of a retired Indian Air Force sergeant Mohammad Hanif from a hotel in Guwahati along with three others on July 10, 2005. Mohammad Hanif had allegedly procured these documents through his son, Mohammad Javed, who worked as a Lance Naik in the Army's 4 Corps in Tezpur.

Of late, the ISI has been making all out efforts to employ the services of several Kashmir- and Bangladesh-based Islamist groups in the Northeast. Security experts have warned that the ISI's long-term goal in Assam is to boost the activities of Islamic groups. Harkat-ul-Mujahideen has reportedly recruited and dispatched a number of youths from Assam for training in Pakistan. The Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has reportedly formed a suicide squad to target Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, reportedly for his stand against illegal infiltration from across the border and for taking measures against the proliferation of fundamentalist outfits. There is a distinct possibility that the JMB would over time begin to co-operate and co-ordinate its actions with local Islamist militant groups in Assam.

Much more alarmingly, there have been media reports of the ISI attempting to spread HIV/AIDS among Indian security forces personnel deployed along the border areas, in liaison with HIV infected women in these areas. However, such reports have not been confirmed officially as yet.

As the Pakistani ISI expands and consolidates its influence, the threat it brings to India's national security are real and grave. Its effort to rope in the services of foreign based terror groups in this part of the country will prove to be too costly an affair for India in general and the northeast region in particular.

Dr. M Amarjeet Singh is Research Assistant at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

::IDSA Strategic Comments:: The ISI's Supervisory Role in Assam ::

 

[asaad-ul-islam]

for those who run on speculation, a link to enlighten you. Never thought i'd see the day where ISI gets pass KGB(ex-KGB officers) and R&AW, two birds with one stone.

Moscow & Delhi
Fighting Together

There is little evidence that the wave of terrorism that is presently sweeping across much of the globe will diminish in the proximate future. If anything, there is reason to expect a significant escalation in the near term, particularly in view of the mismanagement of the situation in Iraq, the increasing disarray in the ‘global coalition against terror’ and a strengthening perception among Islamist extremist planners that the contemporary world’s ‘sole hyperpower’ is deeply vulnerable to the methods of terrorism and irregular warfare, notwithstanding it great financial, military and technological strength. A natural corollary to this perception is that other, relatively weaker, nation states currently targeted by terrorism would naturally be even more susceptible to this method of warfare.

India and Russia are prominent among such targeted countries, and both have suffered immensely as a result of Islamist extremist terrorism over the past decade. The potential of this campaign of attrition has, moreover, escalated enormously within Asia’s rapidly transforming geopolitical dynamic, giving a new urgency to traditional Indo-Russian ties. It is abundantly clear, now, that the ‘unipolar’ world structure that appeared to have crystallized over the last decade of the 20th Century was, at best, an imperfect transitional construct, and that the world will suffer the consequences of rising instability – manifested particularly in terrorism – for years to come, until a more stable multipolar configuration is crafted out of the current disorders.


During his visit to New Delhi in December 2002, President Putin had clearly stated, "We believe a transfer of the center of international terrorism to this region has taken place, and we intend to coordinate the efforts of all agencies...to combat international terror." Earlier, in his address to the Indian Parliament in October 2000, he noted, "the same individuals, the same terrorist and extremist organizations are involved in terrorist acts from the Philippines to Kosovo, including in Jammu & Kashmir, Afghanistan and Chechnya."

The control centers of this international web of terrorism lie in Pakistan, the country that supports terrorism in the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), as in other parts of the country; Paikstan’s patronage – indeed, domination – of the Taliban forces and regime in Afghanistan before 9/11 is common knowledge. What is less well known is the Pakistani role in fomenting Islamist extremism in Chechnya, Dagestan, and the Central Asian Republics (CARs) where the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has actively mobilized fundamentalist forces for over a decade; has directly trained and supported terrorist cadres; and given sanctuary to their leadership. Most of the members of the Chechen Cabinet are known to have been trained in Pakistan, and as far back as in July 1995, senior Russian counter-terrorism officials had indicated that Chechen commander Shamil Basayev was among the terrorists trained in Pakistani camps. Salman Raduyev, another Chechen who had led a raid in Kizlyar, Dagestan, in January 1996, taking over 2,000 Russians hostage, also received training from the Harkat-ul-Mujahiddeen (HuM) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The HuM was an ISI creation, and came into being in 1985, originally to participate in the Jehad against Soviet Forces in Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the group substantially turned its attention to J&K, though its influence and its cadres go well beyond. The HuM has been particularly active in training Islamist terrorists in countries including the Philippines, Myanmar, the Central Asian Republics (CARs), Chechnya, Dagestan and the Xinjiang province of China.

The Pakistani intervention in Chechnya is part of a larger game plan, drawn out during the tenure of Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir as the Director General of the ISI, to dominate the CARs. Nasir was also an ‘advisor’ to the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), which was used extensively in this process, backed by liberal funding from Saudi Arabia. The TJ extensively preached an extremist Wahabi form of Islam in the CARs, as well as in Chechnya and Dagestan in Russia, and in the Xinjiang province of China, mobilizing recruits, who were brought to Pakistan and Afghanistan for ‘religious studies’ and for arms training in camps run by the HuM and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Uzbekistan has accused three Pakistani organizations – the Mezb-e-Harkat-e-Jihad (MHJ), Devas-Ul-Ershad (DUE) and the Islamic Ulema Society (IUS) – of clandestinely training hundreds of Central Asians at various centers in Pakistan to carry out terrorist attacks. A large number of mercenaries and volunteers from Pakistan have also participated in terrorist operations in Chechnya and Dagestan. An international Islamist ‘charitable’ organization, Al Haramein Islamic Foundation, created to support the anti-Soviet movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s was also known to have subsequently widened its activities to support Islamist terrorist organizations worldwide, and established a network of offices in Albania, Macedonia, Croatia, Kosovo, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, Somalia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, and was active in Chechnya as well. The Foundation is headquartered at Riyadh, and provides support to Wahabi extremist groups in Dagestan and Chechnya. Al Haramein’s operations in Pakistan have been used to arrange the acquisition of heavy weaponry, a range of armaments, and the recruitment of experienced Pakistani mercenaries for the Chechen terrorists. The Chechen rebels had also established strong links with the Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as with a number of Pakistan based extremist groups, including the HuM, the LeT, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam.

Both Delhi and Moscow see a widening arc of Islamist terror sweeping across Eastern Europe, Central, South and South East Asia. Under the circumstances, effectives counter-terrorism cooperation between the target countries has become an urgent imperative. Joint Working Groups have been set up between India and Russia, and there has been significant forward movement at the diplomatic levels. There is, however, a long way to go before such cooperation can be translated into an effective operational response to the patterns of terrorism that affect both countries, and to the regional geopolitical context that impinges on their strategic interests. Both countries, moreover, have extensive and varied experience in countering terrorism, and there is much that they can learn from one another in terms of the effectiveness or otherwise of tactical, technological, administrative and structural responses to terrorism.


(Edited version published in New Theme: On Russian - Indian Affairs, Volume VII, Issue No. 3, July-September 2004.)
Moscow & Delhi: Fighting Together - Ajai Sahni: Wars Within Borders -- Occasional writings on Sub-conventional Conflicts

 

[asaad-ul-islam]

ISI
(The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence also Inter-Services Intelligence)

History

After independence in 1947, two new intelligence agencies were created in Pakistan called the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Military Intelligence (MI). However, the weak performance of the MI in sharing intelligence between the Army, Navy and Air Force during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 led to the creation of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in 1948. The ISI was structured to be manned by officers from the three main military services, and to specialize in the collection, analysis and assessment of external intelligence, either military or non-military. The ISI was the brainchild of Australian-born British Army officer, Major General R. Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pakistan Army. Initially, the ISI had no role in the collection of internal intelligence, with the exception of the North-West Frontier Province and Azad Kashmir. This however changed in the late 1950s when Ayub Khan became the Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan.

Ayub Khan expanded the role of ISI in safeguarding Pakistan’s interests, monitoring opposition politicians, and sustaining military rule in Pakistan. The ISI was reorganised in 1966 after intelligence failures in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, and expanded in 1969. Ayub Khan suspected the loyalty of the East Pakistan based officers in the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau or the Internal Bureau (IB) branch in Dacca, the capital of then East Pakistan. He entrusted the ISI with the responsibility for the collection of internal political intelligence in East Pakistan. Later on, during the Baloch nationalist revolt in Balochistan in the mid 1970s, the ISI was tasked with performing a similar intelligence gathering operation.

The ISI lost its importance during the regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was very critical of its role during the 1970 general elections, which triggered off the events leading to the partition of Pakistan and emergence of Bangladesh.

The ISI regained its lost glory after Gen. Zia ul-Haq seized power in July 1977. Under his reign, the ISI was expanded by making it responsible for the collection of intelligence about the Sindh based Communist party and monitoring the Shia organization after the Iranian revolution of 1979, as well as monitoring various political parties such as the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). The Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s saw the enhancement of the covert action capabilities of the ISI by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). A special Afghan Section was created under the command of colonel Mohammed Yousaf to oversee the coordination of the war. A number of officers from the ISI's Covert Action Division received training in the US and many covert action experts of the CIA were attached to the ISI to guide it in its operations against the Soviet troops by using the Afghan Mujahideen, specifically the fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The United States of America provided technical assistance and financial support to Islamic fundamentalists of Pakistan and Arab volunteers through ISI.

In 1988, Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq initiated Operation Tupac, which was designation of a three part action plan for the liberation of Kashmir, initiated after the failure of Operation Gibraltar. The name of the operation came from Túpac Amaru II, the 18th century prince who led the war of liberation in Peru against Spanish rule. By May 1996, at least six major militant organizations, and several smaller ones, operated in Kashmir. Their forces are variously estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000 armed men and were mostly of Pakistani Punjabis and Pashtuns. They were roughly divided between those who support independence and those who support accession to Pakistan. The ISI is believed to have played a key role in masterminding the Kargil War.

During 1998-1999, the ISI Director General was sidelined due to his relationship with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; General Muhammad Aziz Khan was in operational control and directly answerable only to General Pervez Musharraf. During this time, the ISI was contributing greatly to the Taliban.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Pakistan joined the American led Global War on Terror and turned against the Taliban. Some men in the ISI whose loyalty was suspect were removed and currently, the ISI have been heavily engaged in counterterrorism against both Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants as well as tribal/sectarian terrorists in Pakistan.


Objectives

The objectives of ISI are:

Safeguard Pakistani interests and national security inside and outside the country.

Monitor the political and military developments in adjoining countries, which have direct bearing on Pakistan's national security and in the formulation of its foreign policy and to collect foreign and domestic intelligence in such cases.

Co-ordination of intelligence functions of the three military services.

Keep vigilant surveillance over its cadre, foreigners, the media, politically active segments of Pakistani society, diplomats of other countries accredited to Pakistan and Pakistani diplomats serving outside the country.


Functions


1. Collection of information: ISI obtains information critical to Indian strategic interests. Both overt and covert means are adopted.

2. Arming jihadis in kashmir: ISI provides financial and military support to Kashmir based militant organizations

3. Classification of information: Data is sifted through, classified as appropriate, and filed with the assistance of Taliban and the computer network in ISI's headquarters in Islamabad.

4. Aggressive intelligence: The primary mission of ISI includes aggressive intelligence which is comprised of espionage, psychological warfare, subversion, sabotage, and promoting insurgency in enemy locations.

5. Counter intelligence: ISI has a dedicated section which spies against enemy's intelligence collection oganizations. With unscrupulous enemy agencies abounding in Pakistani neighbourhood, this is among the most important function of ISI.


Modus operandi

A. Espionage Techniques involving: Agent Handling – Black Bag Operations – Concealment device – Cryptography – Cut-out – Dead drop–Eavesdropping–False flag operations – Honeypot – Nonofficial cover – Interrogation – Numbers messaging – One-way voice link – Steganography – Surveillance – TEMPEST

B. Diplomatic missions: Diplomatic missions provide an ideal cover and ISI centres in a target country are generally located on the embassy premises.

C. Multinationals: ISI operatives find good covers in multinational organizations. Non-governmental organizations and cultural programmes are also popular screens to shield ISI activities.

D. Media: International media centers can easily absorb ISI operatives and provide freedom of movement.

E. Collaboration with other agencies: ISI maintains active collaboration with other secret services in various countries. Its contacts with Saudi Arabian Intelligence Services, Chinese Intelligence, Israel's Mossad (when PLO weapons were transferred to Afghanistan via Pakistan), the American CIA and British MI6 have been well-known.

F. Third Country Technique: ISI has been active in obtaining information and operating through third countries like Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Turkey and China.

G. Spotting and Recruitment: ISI operatives actively search for local recruits and operatives. Separatist tendencies and ethnic or sectarian sensitivities are also allegedly used as grounds for manipulation (such as the alleged involvement of ISI with the Khalistan Commando Force). Armed forces and Paramilitary personnel remain a primary target for enrolment.

Departments

1. Joint Intelligence X: JIX is the coordinator of all the other departments in the ISI. Intelligence and information gathered from the other departments are sent to JIX which prepares and processes the information and from which prepares reports which are presented.

2. Joint Intelligence Bureau: JIB is the largest part of the ISI and was perhaps the most powerful component of the ISI in the late 1980s. It's main area of work is to gather intelligence on political parties. It also has three sub-sections which include operations in India, conducting anti-terrorism operations and providing security to VIPs.

3. Joint Counter Intelligence Bureau: JCIB is Pakistan's version of the NOC's of the CIA. Pakistani diplomats who conduct intelligence gathering operations report directly to this department. The area in which most of this kind of operations are conducted are in the Middle East, South Asia, China, Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics. It is alleged that the ISI has expanded the range of the diplomats to conduct intelligence gathering operations in Europe, Africa and South America as well.

4. Joint Intelligence North: JIN is exclusively responsible for the Jammu and Kashmir region and in particular the Indian troop movement along the LOC (Line of Control). However, due to recent peace overtures between India and Pakistan, the size of this department is being reduced.

5. Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous: JIM is responsible for conducting espionage, offensive spy missions, surveillance and any other activities during war time.

6. Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau: JSIB has three Deputy Directors who are each charged with wireless communication intercepts, Monitoring enemy agents and other assets and conducting reconnaissance operations such as photographs. Most of the work force in this department are recruited from the Military College of Signals Academy and others come from the Army Signal Corps.

7. Joint Intelligence Technical: JIT is responsible for developing gadgets, monitoring equipment, explosives and even has known to have a chemical warfare section. Other than that, not much is known about this department.

Some Major successes of ISI

• In the 1950s, the ISI's Covert Action Division was used in assisting the insurgents in India's North-East and its role was e•panded in the late 1960s to assist the Sikh Home Rule Movement of London-based Charan Singh Panchi, which was subsequently transformed into the Khalistan Movement, headed by Jagjit Singh Chauhan in which many other members of the Sikh diaspora in Europe, United States and Canada joined and then demanded the separate country of Khalistan. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and ISI worked in tandem during the Nixon Administration in assisting the Khalistan movement in Punjab.

• ISI decided to spy on the residence of Colonel Hussain Imam Mabruk who was a Military Attaché to the Embassy of Libya in Islamabad as he had made some inflammatory statements towards the military regime of Zia-ul-Haq. The spying paid off as he was seen talking with two Pakistani gentlemen who entered and left the compound suspiciously. The ISI monitored the two men and were later identified as Pakistani exiles that hated the current military regime and were Bhutto loyalists. They had received terrorist training in Libya and were ready to embark on a terrorist campaign in Pakistan to force the Army to step down from power. All members of the conspiracy were apprehended before any damage could be done.

• ISI foiled an attempt by the French Ambassador to Pakistan, Le Gourrierce and his First Secretary, Jean Forlot who were on a surveillance mission to Kahuta nuclear complex on June 26, 1979. Both were intercepted and their cameras and other sensitive equipment were confiscated. Intercepted documents later on showed that the two were recruited by the CIA.

• After the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, the U.S. media outlets such as Newsweek and Time reported that CIA agents stationed in Tehran had obtained information in regard to the location of the hostages, in-house information from a Pakistani cook who used to work for the U.S. Embassy. ISI successfully gathered evidence, and intercepted communication documents and showed it to the Iranian Chief of J-2 which cleared the cook. The Iranian chief of intelligence said, “We know, the Big Satan is a big liar.”

• ISI successfully intercepted two American private weapons dealers during the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s. One American diplomat (his name has not been de-classified) who lived in the F-7/4 sector of Islamabad was spotted by an ISI agent in a seedy part of Rawalpindi by his Car's diplomatic plates. He was bugged and trailed and was found to be in contact with various tribal groups supplying them with weapons for their fight with the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. Another was Eugene Clegg, a teacher in the American International School who also indulged in weapons trade. All of them were put out of business.

• ISI had placed a mole in the Soviet Embassy in Islamabad. The mole reported that the Third Secretary in the Soviet Embassy was after information in regard to the Karakurum Highway and was obtaining it from a middle level employee, Mr. Ejaz, of the Northern Motor Transport Company. ISI contacted Mr. Ejaz who then confessed that a few months ago the Soviet diplomat approached him and threatened his family unless he divulged sensitive information in regard to the highway such as alignment of the road, location of bridges, the number of Chinese personnel working on the Highway, etc. The ISI instead of confronting the Soviet diplomat chose to feed him with false information. This continued until the Soviet diplomat was satisfied that Mr. Ejaz had been bled white of all the information and then dropped him as a source.

• Worrying that among the large influx of Afghan refugees that come into Pakistan due to the Soviet-Afghan war were members of KHAD (Afghan Intelligence), the ISI successfully convinced Mansoor Ahmed who was the Charge-de-Affairs of the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad to turn his back on the Soviet backed Afghan government. He and his family were secretly escorted out of their residence and were given safe passage on a London bound British Airways flight in exchange for classified information in regard to Afghan agents in Pakistan. The Soviet and Afghan diplomats tried their best to find the family but were unsuccessful.

• A routine background checks on various staff members working for the Indian embassy raised suspicions on an Indian woman who worked as a school teacher in an Indian School in Islamabad. Her enthusiastic and too friendly attitude gave her up. She was in reality was an agent working for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). ISI monitored her movements to a hotel in Islamabad where she rendezvoused with a local Pakistani man who worked as an engineer for Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. ISI then confronted her and were then able to turn her into a double agent spying on the Indian Embassy in Islamabad.

• ISI became aware of a plot to assassinate the President of Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq and then launch a bloody coup to depose the current government and install an extreme Islamic government in its place. The attempted assassination and coup was to occur on March 23, 1980 during the annual March 23 Pakistan day parade. The masterminds behind the coup were high ranking Military and Intelligence officers and were led by Major General Tajammal Hussain Malik, his son, Captain Naveed and his nephew Major Riaz, a former Military Intelligence officer. ISI decided against arresting these men outright because they did not know how deep this conspiracy went and kept these men under strict surveillance. As the date of the annual parade approached, ISI was satisfied that it had identified the major players in this conspiracy and then arrested these men along with quite a few high ranking military officers.

• Ilam Din also known as Ilmo was an infamous Indian spy working from Pakistan. He had eluded being captured many times but on March 23 at 3 a.m., Ilmo and two other Indian spies were apprehended by Pakistani Rangers as they were illegally crossing into Pakistan from India. Their mission was to spy and report back on the new military equipment that Pakistan will be showing in their annual March 23 Pakistan day parade. Ilmo after being thoroughly interrogated was then forced by the ISI to send false information to his RAW handlers in India. This process continued and many more Indian spies in Pakistan were flushed out such as Roop Lal.

• ISI uncovered a secret deal in which naval base facilities were granted by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to the USSR in Vizag and the Andaman & Nicobar Island and the alleged attachment of KGB advisers to the then Lieutenant General Sunderji who was the commander of Operation Bluestar in the Golden Temple in Amritsar in June 1984.

• ISI, CIA and Mossad carried out a covert transfer of Soviet-made Palestine Liberation Organization and Lebanese weapons captured by the Israelis during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 and their subsequent transfer to Pakistan and then into Afghanistan. All knowledge of this weapon transfer was kept secret and was only made public recently.


ISI Director, Akhtar Abdur Rahman who was
the architect of the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union.


• ISI played a central role in the U.S.-backed guerrilla war to oust the Soviet Army from Afghanistan in the 1980s. That Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-backed effort flooded Pakistan with weapons and with Afghan, Pakistani and Arab "mujahideen", who were motivated to fight as a united force protecting fellow Muslims in Soviet occupied Afghanistan. The CIA relied on the ISI to train fighters, distribute arms, and channel money. The ISI trained about 83,000 Afghan mujahideen between 1983 and 1997, and dispatched them to Afghanistan.

• CIA through the ISI promoted the smuggling of heroin into Afghanistan in order to turn the Soviet troops into heroin addicts and thus greatly reducing their fighting potential.

• Major General Sultan Habib who was an operative of the ISI's Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous department successfully procured nuclear material while being posted as the Defense Attaché in the Pakistani Embassy in Moscow from 1991 to 1993 and concurrently obtaining other materials from Central Asian Republics, Poland and the former Czechoslovakia. After Moscow, Major General Habib then coordinated shipping of missiles from North Korea and the training of Pakistani experts in the missile production. These two acts greatly enhanced Pakistan's Nuclear weapons program and their missile delivery systems.

• ISI engineered the takeover of Afghanistan by the hard-line Islamic Taliban regime after the fall of the Communist government in Kabul in 1992.

• The ISI has been said to have infiltrated RAW and the Indian Armed Forces.

Some Major failures of the ISI

• The 1965 war in Kashmir provoked a major crisis in intelligence. When the war started, there was a complete collapse of the operations of all the intelligence agencies, which had been largely devoted to domestic investigative work such as tapping telephone conversations and chasing political suspects. The covert infiltration plan, codenamed Operation Gibraltar was essentially an intelligence fiasco, partly due to ISI, after having overestimated so called "local support" to infiltrators in Kashmir and having underestimated the Indian response to the plan. The ISI, after the commencement of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, was apparently unable to locate an Indian armored division due to its preoccupation with political affairs. Ayub Khan set up a committee headed by General Yahya Khan to examine the working of the agencies.

ISI failed to suppress the political parties in East Pakistan in the 1970s as well as stop Indian infiltration which led to the creation of Bangladesh.

• In 1981, a Libyan Security company called Al Murtaza Associates sends recruiters to Pakistan to entice former soldiers and servicemen for high paying security jobs in Libya. In reality, Libya was recruiting mercenaries to fight with Chad and Egypt as it had border disputes with both nations. Only later did the ISI become aware of the plot and the whole scheme was stopped, but nearly 2,700 Pakistanis had already left for those jobs.

• The PAF Field Intelligence Unit at their base in Karachi in July 1980 captured an Indian agent. He was interrogated and revealed that a large network of Indian spies were functioning in Karachi. The agent claimed that these spies, in addition to espionage, had also assassinated a few armed personnel. He also said the leader of the spy ring was being headed by the food and beverages manager at the Intercontinental Hotel in Karachi and a number of serving Air Force officers and ratings were on his payroll. The ISI decided to survey the manager to see who he was in contact with, but then President of Pakistan Zia-ul Haq superseded and wanted the manager and anyone else involved in the case arrested immediately. It was later proven that the manager was completely innocent.

• ISI failed to perform a proper background check on the British company which supplied the Pakistan Army with its Arctic-weather gear. When Pakistan attempted to secure the top of the Siachen Glacier in 1984, it placed a large order for Arctic-weather gear with the same company that also supplied the Indian Army with its gear. Indians were easily alerted to the large Pakistani purchase and deduced that this large purchase could be used to equip troops to capture the glacier. India then mounted an operation (Operation Meghdoot) and secured the top of the glacier before Pakistan.

• ISI was unable to induce the Afghan mujahideen - to whom it had provided large sums of funding during its fight with Marxist forces during the 1980s - to cooperate and unite following the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Pakistan's neighbor Afghanistan in 1989. The war against the Marxist government and civil war between the Mujahideen that followed killed many thousands and caused enormous destruction.

• The Taliban regime that the ISI supported after 1994 to suppress warlord fighting and in hopes of bringing stability to Afghanistan proved too rigid in its Islamic interpretations and too fond of the Al-Qaeda based on its soil. Despite receiving large sums of aid from Pakistan, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar is reported to have insulted a visiting delegation of Saudi Prince Sultan and an ISI general asking that the Taliban turn over bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. Following the 9/11 attack on the United States by Al-Qaeda, Pakistan felt it necessary to switch sides and cooperate with the US and the Northern Alliance in a war against the Taliban.

• ISI failed to calculate the international reaction to the Kargil operation in summer of 1999. Subsequent heavy pressure by foreign countries such as USA forced the Pakistani-backed forces to withdraw from Kargil.

ISI - The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence

 

[Zyxius]

I think the Indians are unfairly paranoid of our ISI operating in their country. They fail to realize that we have much more powerful instruments that have been in key positions in India for generations....do you forget that it was a under ground group of Muslims who controlled Bollywood until the last decade? Do you realize that your entire Indian cricket team and Bollywood stars still come to pay homage to this underground group?

Besides, the ISI is much more interested in operating within Pakistan than it is outside it.

 

[Bushroda]

do you forget that it was a under ground group of Muslims who controlled Bollywood until the last decade? Do you realize that your entire Indian cricket team and Bollywood stars still come to pay homage to this underground group?

And yet you people complaint that they make anti-Pakistan, anti-Islam movies.

 

[Flintlock]

I think the Indians are unfairly paranoid of our ISI operating in their country. They fail to realize that we have much more powerful instruments that have been in key positions in India for generations....do you forget that it was a under ground group of Muslims who controlled Bollywood until the last decade? Do you realize that your entire Indian cricket team and Bollywood stars still come to pay homage to this underground group?

Besides, the ISI is much more interested in operating within Pakistan than it is outside it.

LOL....go on buddy....why did you stop the fairy tale.

 

[Zyxius]

LOL....go on buddy....why did you stop the fairy tale.

My dear, you can laugh it off if you wish...but a fact is still a fact. Out of 10 names I can think of from just the top of my head, here is one; Dawood Ibrahim. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the scene, but Sanjay Dutt, Dilip Kumar, Rekha and pretty much anyone who was anyone in Bollywood has had to pay homage to this man and his network. There are plenty of others and all you have to do is go to a wedding of one of these guys and you will see all your stars there coming to get their Ashirvaad.

 

[Flintlock]

My dear, you can laugh it off if you wish...but a fact is still a fact. Out of 10 names I can think of from just the top of my head, here is one; Dawood Ibrahim. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the scene, but Sanjay Dutt, Dilip Kumar, Rekha and pretty much anyone who was anyone in Bollywood has had to pay homage to this man and his network. There are plenty of others and all you have to do is go to a wedding of one of these guys and you will see all your stars there coming to get their Ashirvaad.

My dear, your inaccurate information is around 10-15 years old. There was a significant mafia presence in bollywood, but it was never a controlling one.

Today, Dawood and his cronies have been long driven out of India and are currently whimpering in Pakistan.

 

[Zyxius]

My dear, your inaccurate information is around 10-15 years old. There was a significant mafia presence in bollywood, but it was never a controlling one.

Today, Dawood and his cronies have been long driven out of India and are currently whimpering in Pakistan.

I did say that this group controlled Bollywood until the last decade so there is no inaccuracy in my information, you are in fact agreeing that that was the case until a decade ago. Much of the finance for movies came from these guys, so I don't know if you call owning something controlling it or not....I think I would.

Regarding today, the same people still have an incredible stronghold in India in countless businesses but their power is not as concentrated in any one sector. However, they can and still do exert enormous influence and are easily able to carry out whatever they needed to in India.

This discussion started by my pointing out to you that India is worried about ISI and Pakistan when there are far more determined and powerful instruments at work inside India....of which the ISI is probably an inconsequential part, i.e. the naked field agent standing on a street in Delhi pretending to be insane as part of his first two years in the agency. That is followed by several years of service within Pakistan where they make pornos of Pakistani politicians.

 

[Flintlock]

I did say that this group controlled Bollywood until the last decade so there is no inaccuracy in my information, you are in fact agreeing that that was the case until a decade ago. Much of the finance for movies came from these guys, so I don't know if you call owning something controlling it or not....I think I would.

Regarding today, the same people still have an incredible stronghold in India in countless businesses but their power is not as concentrated in any one sector. However, they can and still do exert enormous influence and are easily able to carry out whatever they needed to in India.

This discussion started by my pointing out to you that India is worried about ISI and Pakistan when there are far more determined and powerful instruments at work inside India....of which the ISI is probably an inconsequential part, i.e. the naked field agent standing on a street in Delhi pretending to be insane as part of his first two years in the agency. That is followed by several years of service within Pakistan where they make pornos of Pakistani politicians.

Oops...sorry...I completely misunderstood your post. this is embarassing.

I am not sure how much of a mafia presence was there in bollywood, also what percentage of the finances were sourced through hawala is also debatable.

Mafia dons have been around in almost all cities of the world, however their influence on affairs is frequently exaggerated because of the nature of their work.

However, since the opening up of the economy in '91, the influence of dons like Dawood Ibrahim, Chotta Rajan etc. has dwindled considerably because of increasing corporate presence in the movie industry.

 

[dr.umer]

ISI Operational Achievements Countrywise​

Afghanistan

(1982) ISI, CIA and Mossad carried out a covert transfer of Soviet-made Palestine Liberation Organization and Lebanese weapons captured by the Israelis during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 and their subsequent transfer to Pakistan and then into Afghanistan. All knowledge of this weapon transfer was kept secret and was only made public recently.

(1982-1997) ISI played a central role in the U.S.-backed guerrilla war to oust the Soviet Army from Afghanistan in the 1980s. That Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-backed effort flooded Pakistan with weapons and with Afghan, Pakistani and Arab "mujahideen", who were motivated to fight as a united force protecting fellow Muslims in Soviet occupied Afghanistan. The CIA relied on the ISI to train fighters, distribute arms, and channel money. The ISI trained about 83,000 Afghan mujahideen between 1983 and 1997, and dispatched them to Afghanistan.

(1986) Worrying that among the large influx of Afghan refugees that come into Pakistan due to the Soviet-Afghan war were members of KHAD (Afghan Intelligence), the ISI successfully convinced Mansoor Ahmed who was the Charge-de-Affairs of the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad to turn his back on the Soviet backed Afghan government. He and his family were secretly escorted out of their residence and were given safe passage on a London bound British Airways flight in exchange for classified information in regard to Afghan agents in Pakistan. The Soviet and Afghan diplomats tried their best to find the family but were unsuccessful.

(1992) ISI engineered the takeover of Afghanistan by the hard-line Islamic Taliban regime after the fall of the Communist government in Kabul in 1992.

(2001) ISI expels Hamid Karzai from his residence in exile in Pakistan for opposing the Taliban

India

(1950s) The ISI's Covert Action Division was used in assisting the insurgents in India's North-East.

(1960s) In the late 1960s assists the Sikh Home Rule Movement of London-based Charan Singh Panchi, which was subsequently transformed into the Khalistan Movement, headed by Jagjit Singh Chauhan in which many other members of the Sikh diaspora in Europe, United States and Canada joined and then demanded the separate country of Khalistan.

(1969-1974) The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and ISI worked in tandem during the Nixon Administration in assisting the Khalistan movement in Punjab.

(1980) The PAF Field Intelligence Unit at their base in Karachi in July 1980 captured an Indian agent. He was interrogated and revealed that a large network of Indian spies were functioning in Karachi. The agent claimed that these spies, in addition to espionage, had also assassinated a few armed personnel.

(1983) Ilam Din also known as Ilmo was an infamous Indian spy working from Pakistan. He had eluded being captured many times but on March 23 at 3 a.m., Ilmo and two other Indian spies were apprehended by Pakistani Rangers as they were illegally crossing into Pakistan from India. Their mission was to spy and report back on the new military equipment that Pakistan will be showing in their annual March 23 Pakistan day parade. Ilmo after being thoroughly interrogated was then forced by the ISI to send false information to his RAW handlers in India. This process continued and many more Indian spies in Pakistan were flushed out such as Roop Lal.

(1984) ISI uncovered a secret deal in which naval base facilities were granted by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to the USSR in Vizag and the Andaman & Nicobar Island and the alleged attachment of KGB advisers to the then Lieutenant General Sunderji who was the commander of Operation Bluestar in the Golden Temple in Amritsar in June 1984.

(1985) A routine background checks on various staff members working for the Indian embassy raised suspicions on an Indian woman who worked as a school teacher in an Indian School in Islamabad. Her enthusiastic and too friendly attitude gave her up. She was in reality an agent working for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). ISI monitored her movements to a hotel in Islamabad where she rendezvoused with a local Pakistani man who worked as an engineer for Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. ISI then confronted her and were then able to turn her into a double agent spying on the Indian Embassy in Islamabad.

Pakistan

(1980) ISI became aware of a plot to assassinate the President of Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq and then launch a bloody coup to depose the current government and install an extreme Islamic government in its place. The attempted assassination and coup was to occur on March 23, 1980 during the annual March 23 Pakistan day parade. The masterminds behind the coup were high ranking Military and Intelligence officers and were led by Major General Tajammal Hussain Malik, his son, Captain Naveed and his nephew Major Riaz, a former Military Intelligence officer. ISI decided against arresting these men outright because they did not know how deep this conspiracy went and kept these men under strict surveillance. As the date of the annual parade approached, ISI was satisfied that it had identified the major players in this conspiracy and then arrested these men along with quite a few high ranking military officers.

Iran

(1979) After the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, the U.S. media outlets such as Newsweek and Time reported that CIA agents stationed in Tehran had obtained information in regard to the location of the hostages, in-house information from a Pakistani cook who used to work for the U.S. Embassy. ISI successfully gathered evidence, and intercepted communication documents and showed it to the Iranian Chief of J-2 which cleared the cook. The Iranian chief of intelligence said, “We know, the Big Satan is a big liar.”

France

(1979) ISI foiled an attempt by the French Ambassador to Pakistan, Le Gourrierce and his First Secretary, Jean Forlot who were on a surveillance mission to Kahuta Research Laboratories nuclear complex on June 26, 1979. Both were intercepted and their cameras and other sensitive equipment were confiscated. Intercepted documents later on showed that the two were recruited by the CIA.

Soviet Union and Post-Soviet states

(1980) ISI had placed a mole in the Soviet Union's embassy in Islamabad. The mole reported that the Third Secretary in the Soviet Embassy was after information in regard to the Karakurum Highway and was obtaining it from a middle level employee, Mr. Ejaz, of the Northern Motor Transport Company. ISI contacted Mr. Ejaz who then confessed that a few months ago the Soviet diplomat approached him and threatened his family unless he divulged sensitive information in regard to the highway such as alignment of the road, location of bridges, the number of Chinese personnel working on the Highway, etc. The ISI instead of confronting the Soviet diplomat chose to feed him with false information. This continued until the Soviet diplomat was satisfied that Mr. Ejaz had been bled white of all the information and then dropped him as a source.

(1991-1993) Major General Sultan Habib who was an operative of the ISI's Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous department successfully procured nuclear material while being posted as the Defense Attaché in the Pakistani Embassy in Moscow from 1991 to 1993 and concurrently obtaining other materials from Central Asian Republics, Poland and the former Czechoslovakia. After Moscow, Major General Habib then coordinated shipping of missiles from North Korea and the training of Pakistani experts in the missile production. These two acts greatly enhanced Pakistan's Nuclear weapons program and their missile delivery systems.

United States

(1980s) ISI successfully intercepted two American private weapons dealers during the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s. One American diplomat (his name has not been de-classified) who lived in the F-7/4 sector of Islamabad was spotted by an ISI agent in a seedy part of Rawalpindi by his Car's diplomatic plates. He was bugged and trailed and was found to be in contact with various tribal groups supplying them with weapons for their fight with the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. Another was Eugene Clegg, a teacher in the American International School who also indulged in weapons trade. All of them were put out of business.

Source - Wikipedia.org

 

[thorosius]

When Spies Don’t Play Well With Their Allies

WASHINGTON — As they complete their training at “The Farm,” the Central Intelligence Agency’s base in the Virginia tidewater, young agency recruits are taught a lesson they are expected never to forget during assignments overseas: there is no such thing as a friendly intelligence service. Foreign spy services, even those of America’s closest allies, will try to manipulate you. So you had better learn how to manipulate them back ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/weekinreview/20mazzetti.html

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Already posted here -

http://www.defence.pk/forums/strate...837-south-asia-awaits-another-secret-war.html

 

[Neo]

Reform ISI? Not like this​

The US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Mr Richard Boucher, said Tuesday that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) needed to be reformed. He did not point to any specific flaw in the conduct of the ISI but the general impression is that his remark sprang from a deep US suspicion that the ISI “retained links to the Taliban”.

The initial reaction against the suggestion has been negative in the Pakistani media, and it was of a piece with the reaction that met Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s attempt in July to place the ISI under the control of the Interior Ministry.

The American press had charged earlier that the ISI was allegedly using the privileged information it had about American attacks against the Afghan Taliban to forewarn the latter. In fact, the American government and most Western governments believe that a recent suicide-bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul was carried out by the ISI. In India, the case is even worse; the ISI is blamed for anything violent that happens inside India which the Indian government cannot explain.

There is no doubt that all state institutions need a periodic review of their performance and have to face internal changes to make them more effective and responsible. But the problem arises when someone else tells you to do it. The act of reforming the ISI has to be initiated by Pakistan and its elected parliament, and it should not be seen as prompted or “ordered” by another state. Since the US and Pakistan are partners in their fight against terrorism — and the success of this partnership in the past has depended solely on the ISI — it would be normal to consult on intelligence and its effectiveness. But it would be counterproductive to make public calls for corrections within the ISI. This is what has happened. If the idea was to bring the PPP government under pressure, the Boucher statement has in effect had the effect of putting it on the defensive. The PPP cannot afford to carry out any reform now.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that politicians across the political divide don’t have their complaints against the ISI. They have used the ISI against one another so many times that the ISI has to some extent become tainted because of the use that has been made of its “political wing”. (One suggestion of reform has been the clipping of this wing.) Political “signalling” has taken place through the sudden blowing up of a car’s tyres or the car catching fire all by itself; and the politicians have not minced their words in accusing the ISI of wrong-doing. The PPP has been specially targeted in the past and it has given proof that the ISI has its share of “rogue” elements. Remember Operation Midnight Jackals against the ruling prime minister, Benazir Bhutto?

Nor is evidence lacking about the ISI becoming subject to “reverse indoctrination”. Some retired ISI chiefs put off everyone when they appear on TV and speak unrealistically about what Pakistan should do to get out of trouble. If you dwell on the past, there is no doubt that these senior officers became infected with the dangerous virus of jihad they were handling. One army chief, General Asif Nawaz, had actually complained that an ex-ISI chief while still serving as a corps commander had advised the mujahideen to reject a change of policy mandated by the GHQ. Under General Pervez Musharraf, an ISI chief, sent out to Kandahar to advise Mullah Umar against war, gave him the opposite message!

Then there are some lower-ranking officers like Mr Khalid Khwaja who left the ISI to become mouthpieces of the very elements that the world associates with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Perhaps the most damaging aspect — which may need reform — is the amount of bragging some ex-ISI men do on TV channels, spreading doubt and disappointment about the ruling government by forwarding unrealistic prescriptions of what Pakistan could or should do but was “criminally” neglecting to undertake.

It is unfortunate that when terrorist blasts occur in Pakistan some people name the ISI as the culprit behind them. Just like the US, which has forgotten what the ISI did for it after 9/11, Pakistanis too often forget that the organisation has also done some good work in the cause of the security of Pakistan. *

 

[allinone]

Kabul attack: India gives info to Pak

India on Friday presented evidence to Pakistan regarding involvement of ISI in the July 7 Kabul Embassy bombing as the Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism (JATM) met in New Delhi.



During the day-long meeting, the Indian side provided phone intercepts and other information to prove that ISI and other elements based in Pakistan were involved in the massive attack at the Embassy, sources said.

Besides India, Afghanistan and the US have asserted that there was clinching evidence to prove that ISI was behind the suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in which a Brigadier-rank Defence Attache and a senior IFS officer were among the four Indians killed.

Afghan authorities have held some people who have reportedly talked about ISI's link to the attack in which the Embassy complex suffered severe damage.

The Indian side was led by Vivek Katju, Special Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, while the Pakistani delegation was headed by Aizaz Ahmed Choudhry, Additional Secretary in Foreign Ministry.

India, which has maintained that an atmosphere free of violence is a must for the dialogue process to continue, is understood to have pressed for concrete cooperation from Pakistan in tackling terrorism emanating from that country.