Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
Both sides against the middle
Oct 2nd 2008 ISLAMABADFrom The Economist print edition
Getting Pakistan’s spies to stop dabbling in jihad
THE Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), Pakistan’s notorious military spooks, deserve credit for the audacity of their covert support for the Taliban, the enemy of Pakistan’s greatest ally. But America’s patience with the ISI’s double-dealing in Afghanistan is running thin. Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, has given assurance that he will tame the ISI. But a civilian with a dodgy past will find it hard to tackle what Pakistanis call Invisible Soldiers Inc.
In July the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, tried to bring the ISI under the control of the interior ministry. His decision was reversed within hours. But the army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, who has said the ISI is trying to purge itself of pro-Taliban elements, has appointed a new ISI chief, General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, to replace a loyalist of the former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf. The appointment, part of a broader top-brass shuffle, consolidates General Kayani’s grip on the army. General Pasha has supported his chief’s efforts to withdraw the army from politics and to fight militants on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The ISI helped round up hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters after September 11th 2001.
It has been the target of terrorist attacks and has picked up senior Taliban commanders at NATO’s behest. But it has never kicked the old habit of using the Taliban and other jihadist militants to keep alive Pakistani ambitions in Afghanistan and Indian-controlled Kashmir.

American officials believe that the ISI’s agents tip off militants ahead of missile strikes. They claim it was involved in the bombing in July of the Indian embassy in Kabul; and that it supports Soviet-era veterans such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is believed to have close ties to al-Qaeda. Asked about demands for the ISI to be reformed, Mr Zardari replied: “We don’t hunt with the hound and run with the hare, which is what Musharraf was doing.” The trouble is, he is not the master of the hunt.