The Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate or ISI, according to an analysis published here, may not exactly be the monster it has been portrayed as. The analysis by Eben Kaplan, associate editor, Council on Foreign Relations, quotes former US ambassador to Pakistan William Milam as saying, “I do not accept the thesis that the ISI is a rogue organization.” Milam says, “It’s a disciplined army unit that does what it’s told, though it may push the envelope sometimes.”
With a reported staff of 10,000, ISI is hardly monolithic. “Like in any secret service, there are rogue elements,” says Frederic Grare, a South Asia expert and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
ISI-Taliban links: He points out that many of the ISI’s agents have ethnic and cultural ties with Afghan insurgents, and naturally sympathise with them. Experts generally suspect Pakistan still provides some support to the Taliban, though probably not to the extent it did in the past. “If they’re giving them support,” veteran AP correspondent Kathy Gannon says, “it’s access back and forth (to Afghanistan) and the ability to find safe haven.”
The analysis says, quoting experts, that President General Pervez Musharraf exercises firm control over his intelligence agency. His admission that retired ISI agents may be helping Taliban fighters suggests his government knows of at least some unsanctioned Pakistani support for the Afghan insurgency. Experts note Musharraf’s acknowledgement also gives him plausible deniability of any sanctioned assistance Pakistan may also be providing. Marvin Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute is of the view that Pakistan has sent “retired” ISI agents on missions the government could not officially endorse.
Though Pakistan has effectively battled Al-Qaeda, Weinbaum says, it has largely ignored Taliban fighters on its soil. “There are extremist groups that are beyond the pale with which the ISI has no influence at all,” he says. “Those are the ones they go after.” According to Weinbaum, Pakistan has two policies. One is an official policy of promoting stability in Afghanistan; the other is an unofficial policy of supporting jihadis in order to appease political forces within Pakistan. “The second (policy) undermines the first one,” he says.