Lieutenant General Asim Munir assumed the charge as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) 23rd director general on October 26, by replacing outgoing Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, who retired one day before, after reaching the age of superannuation. Gen Asim’s tenure would last for three years; however extension could be given to him by the prime minister to whom the DG ISI reports directly.
In September, the Pakistan Army had approved the promotion of Munir (a 'Hafiz-e-Quran' who memorised the Quran during his posting in Saudi Arabia as Lt Colonel) and five other major generals to the rank of Lieutenant Generals. He has served as head of the Military Intelligence as well as commander of the ISI in Peshawar in year 2000. He also served as military attaché at Pakistan Embassy in Washington and Pakistan Embassy in Saudi Arabia. He was also the 2018 recipient of the Hilal-i-Imtiaz, which is Pakistan's second-highest civilian award that is given to both civilians and military officers for "highest degree of service to the State and for services to international diplomacy".
The ISI plays a key role in coordinating Pakistan's foreign policy, including with regard to the war in neighboring Afghanistan, and is said to have kept close ties to the Afghan Taliban and other Islamic militant groups. Washington and Kabul have both repeatedly accused Pakistan of providing safe havens for Taliban militants, a claim Islamabad has denied.
Brief History of ISI
The Inter-Services Intelligence was created in 1948 following shameful defeat of Pakistan in 1947–48 Pakistan-India war which had exposed weaknesses in intelligence gathering, sharing, and coordination between the Army, Air Force, Navy, Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Military Intelligence (MI). The ISI was structured to be operated by officers from the three main military services, and to specialize in the collection, analysis, and assessment of external military and non-military intelligence. The ISI was the brainchild of the former British Indian Army Major General Sir Robert Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army and selected Colonel Shahid Hamid to set up the agency.
The recruitment and expansion of the ISI was managed and undertaken by Naval Commander Syed Mohammad Ahsan, who was tenuring as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence and played a pivotal role in formulating the procedures of the ISI. Following the 1958 coup d'état, all national intelligence agencies came under the direct control of the President and Chief Martial Law Administrator.
After Chief of Army Staff General Zia-ul-Haq seized power on 5 July 1977 and became the Chief Martial Law Administrator, the ISI was expanded its functions. The Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s saw the enhancement of covert operations of the ISI. A special Afghanistan section (called the SS Directorate) was. A number of officers from the ISI's Covert Action Division received training in the United States and many covert action experts of the CIA were attached to the ISI to guide it in its operations against Soviet troops by using the Afghan Mujahideen. And from now ISI changed from being an intelligence agency of the State to a virtual omnipresent and omniscient ‘state within a State’.
ISI: sponsor of terrorism
Defence analysts believe that the ISI provides support to militant groups. General Javed Nasir, Ex. ISI chief, also confessed to assisting the besieged Bosnian Muslims despite a UN arms embargo, supporting Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, rebel Muslim groups in the Philippines, and some religious groups in Central Asia.
In documents leaked in April 2011 on the Wikileaks website, US authorities described the ISI as a "terrorist" organisation on a par with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In the same month the US military's top officer, Adm Mike Mullen, also accused the ISI of having links with the Taliban. He said it had a "long-standing relationship" with a militant group run by Afghan insurgent Jalaluddin Haqqani, which targets US troops in Afghanistan.
In June 2010 the ISI was accused of giving funding, training and sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban on a scale much larger than previously thought. The paper published by the London School of Economics said that Taliban field commanders suggested that ISI intelligence agents even attend Taliban supreme council meetings - and that support for the militants was "official ISI policy". Much of the high level of concern among some Western countries over the role of the ISI was expressed by British PM David Cameron in 2010.
In fall 2006, a leaked report by a British Defense Ministry think tank charged, "Indirectly Pakistan (through the ISI) has been supporting terrorism and extremism--whether in July 2005 attacks on London’s transit system, or in Afghanistan, or Iraq." In June 2008, Afghan officials accused Pakistan’s intelligence service of plotting a failed assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai; shortly thereafter, they implied the ISI’s involvement in a July 2008 attack on the Indian embassy. Indian officials also blamed the ISI for the bombing of the Indian embassy. Pakistani officials have denied such a connection.
Numerous U.S. officials have also accused the ISI of supporting terrorist groups, even as the Pakistani government seeks increased aid from Washington with assurances of fighting militants. In a May 2009 interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said "to a certain extent, they play both sides."
Conclusion
1971, the ISI has been headed by a serving three-star general of the Pakistan Army, who is appointed by the Prime Minister on recommendation of the Chief of Army Staff, who recommends three officers for the job and the chief directly reporting to the Prime minister of Pakistan. But as the Bruce Riedel, an expert on South Asia at the Brookings Institution says the civilian leadership has "virtually no control" over the army and the ISI.
Constitutionally, the agency is accountable to the prime minister. But most officers in the ISI are from the army, so that is where their loyalties and interests lie, and in such a situation, if the Prime Minister himself is the puppet of the army, it is also futile to hope that he will be able to move forward towards peace process smoothly.