Security expert Bruce Riedel says that from the evidence at hand so far it is clear that the jihadist infrastructure in Pakistan is closely tied to the country's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence. Aziz Haniffa reports
The ongoing war of words between a former Pakistani chief of army staff general and a former ISI chief, trading allegations and counter allegations in the supreme court and blaming each other for payment of millions of rupees among anti-Pakistan People's Party politicians to influence the results of the 1990 general elections, has abundantly made it clear how Pakistan's powerful military and intelligence establishment has been manipulating domestic politics for decades now.
The Inter-Services Intelligence's new chief Lt Gen Zahirul Islam plans to visit some European countries with his predecessor Ahmed Shuja Pasha for exchanging views with intelligence and military officials on Pakistan's ties with the US and reopening of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply routes.
Weekend videos: From Hafiz Saeed to Deparment!
The development comes after a 34-year-old vegetable supplier at the Pokhran Army base camp was held for allegedly getting sensitive documents from an Army man for money and providing them to the ISI.
Pakistan's Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on Wednesday hauled up the country's intelligence agencies for involvement in activities that were not part of their mandate. Chaudhry made the remarks as a three-judge bench resumed hearing a petition filed by former air force chief Asghar Khan against the funding of politicians by the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence to rig the 1990 general election.
The success of Al Qaeda chierf Osama bin Laden in evading detection and arrest by the Pakistani security agencies for nearly six years since 2005 when he lived in a house near the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad was the result of a comprehensive intelligence failure by all agencies responsible for the collection of intelligence inside Pakistan and not the result of a failure by the Inter-Services Intelligence ISI alone.
A major report by Washinton-based think tank on 26/11 predicts that the Indo-Pakistan crisis is both unresolved and unfinished, and further attacks by Pakistan-based and Inter-Services Intelligence trained terrorists is inevitable.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Tuesday held a meeting with the country's army and intelligence chiefs to discuss the regional security situation and the reconciliation process in Afghanistan, reflecting the easing of tensions between the civilian and the military leadership.
Six terrorists with international connections have entered Bihar from neighbouring Nepal, following which an alert has been sounded, a senior police officer said on Friday.Quoting intelligence sources, the officer said the terrorists have sneaked into Araria district from Nepal after killing an Inter Services Intelligence agent in the neighbouring country on December 27. The terrorists are "fully trained with international connections," he said.
After the November 26 attacks on Mumbai brought the Lashkar-e-Taiyba's India-based modules under the Indian intelligence and law enforcement agencies's special scrutiny, the Lashkar has changed its game plan.
The statement by West Bengal Director General of police Naparajit Mukherjee, regarding a nexus between Naxals and the Inter-Services Intelligence is something that needs to be taken seriously, says Vicky Nanjappa.
This is Navlakha's second round of appeal in the high court seeking regular bail.
Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, during the hearing on September 13 remarked that it was 'astonishing that the notification for the establishment of the ISI's political cell could not be found, while the cell had been active for decades'.
The confession of two suspects throws light on the role of Pakistan's spy agency in the Karnataka terror plot and how the youths were indoctrinated by Zakir Ustaad, the mastermind of the operation. Vicky Nanjappa reports
"US better forget him (Afridi) as he is never going to leave here, he will never be traded for Dr Afia Siddiqui, no such proposition is under consideration," Director General ISI, Lt General Zaheeer-ul-Islam said.
Branding Pakistani intelligence agencies including the Inter Services Intelligence as a 'rogue agency', the country's top nuclear scientist A Q Khan has said that it takes orders from the army chief and not the civilian government. Charging that the ISI operated outside the law and totally ignored court orders, Khan, in a scathing attack on the military intelligence agency, said it was being used against politicians and as an 'extended arm of the dictators'.
Pakistan, which used every "legal and illegal" means to go nuclear, shared its secret atomic technology and equipment with countries like Iran and Libya, says an Inter-Services Intelligence report, based on disgraced scientist A Q Khan's questioning, which was circulated among western intelligence agencies.
The Haqqani network, which is blamed for the recent attack on American embassy in Kabul, receives protection and support from the Pakistani spy agency Inter Services Intelligence, an influential think-tank has told American lawmakers.
Senior officials in the Research and Analysis Wing and the Intelligence Bureau are convinced that the attack on Sarabjit Singh, the Indian death row prisoner in Pakistan, was planned by Pakistani intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence.
Pakistan's military-run Inter-Services Intelligence could have provided protection to slain al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden for a period of time, suggests the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine.
Islamabad is set to sell to Washington a new formula where it will assure the Barack Obama administration that it will act swiftly on key targets identified by the CIA in the tribal areas. Amir Mir reports
Special Operation cell of Punjab police on Thursday arrested two alleged accused who were working for the Pakistan-based intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence.
India's protests to Pakistan about prosecuting Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder Mohammad Saeed are pointless, sources in the Intelligence Bureau, India's domestic intelligence agency, told this reporter on Tuesday.
In an effort to consolidate its grip on internal security affairs, the Pakistan government on Tuesday carried out a major revamp of the country's intelligence agencies, transferring the political wing of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence to the civilian Intelligence Bureau. As part of the revamp, carried out by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the intelligence agencies would no longer be required to send secret reports to President Pervez Musharraf.
India must carefully weigh its options, says strategic expert Gurmeet Kanwal.
Experts believe the 300-page chargesheet on Indian Mujahideen operative Yasin Bhatkal a pack of lies with many believing that he misled the investigators on various occasions.
In the first conviction under the Official Secrets Act in Maharashtra, a sessions court on Tuesday sentenced a city resident to five years' rigorous imprisonment on charges of possessing sensitive documents purportedly to hand over to Pakistan's intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence.
Inter-Services Intelligence agency chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha visited the United States to discuss intelligence coordination and not the resumption of military aid that was recently suspended by the American administration, the Pakistani military spokesman said on Saturday.
The Taliban will either attack Peshawar prison, abduct Dr Shakil Afridi and let their leaders decide his fate, or they will use an inmate in the jail kill the doctor. Amir Mir reports from Islamabad
"We should tell the Pakistani army leadership that if we learn one of their officers is involved in harboring terrorists, planning terror operations, or tipping terrorist bomb factories off to drone raids, we will make it personal," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and now a senior fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institute
In what clearly showcases Pakistan's wicked face, several Afghan and international intelligence officials and diplomats stationed in Kabul have confirmed that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, with the help of Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence, has expanded its anti-India operations into Afghanistan and set up training camps, adding new volatility to the relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad.
A long-suspected nexus between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and insurgent groups active in India's northeast have come to light with detained former Bangladesh intelligence chief confirming Islamabad's spy agency's link to the sensational supply of arms to the United Liberation Front of Asom in 2004.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence should focus on nabbing some of the world's most wanted terrorists -- Ayman al-Zawahiri, Siraj Haqqani, Major Iqbal, Sajid Mir and Dawood Ibrahim -- hiding in the country, a United States foreign policy magazine has demanded.
Pakistani on Wednesday dismissed as "totally baseless" a United States media report which claimed that an army Major was among five arrested informants who had provided information to the Central Intelligence Agency ahead of the American raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. A spokesman for the Inter Services Intelligence's public relations "strongly refuted" the news report, saying "there is no army officer detained and the story is false and totally baseless."
One of the detainees was reported to be a Pakistani army major whom officials said copied licence plates of cars visiting the Al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad, Islamabad, the New York Times, citing officials, has reported
Stung by lingering suspicions that it was complicit in sheltering Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's spy agency has claimed credit for helping United States intelligence agencies locate the high-walled hideout of the terror mastermind in Abbottabad. "The lead and the information actually came from US," a senior official of the Inter-Services Intelligence told Washington Post, in what the paper said was a push for recognition ahead of the anniversary of the stealth raid.
Two top United States security officials are traveling to Pakistan on Tuesday to meet the country's civil and military leadership and press for more aggressive action against Al Qaeda-allied groups. Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta and the National Security Advisor General James Jones, who are embarking on a visit to Islamabad, will meet President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, Army Chief General Ashfaq Kiyani.
United States intelligence officials have reportedly questioned the three "hostile" widows of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan but under the watchful eyes of the Inter-Services Intelligence.
"I have read about the ISI chief's statement in the media but I don't think the intelligence agency has stopped monitoring the activities of our politicians," a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, who did not want to be named, said.
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