There was a time when India was the only country to constantly complain that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) used terrorism as a foreign policy weapon. The world unfortunately believed Pakistan’s routine denials. Then came the Afghan war, and the ISI ballooned into an all-powerful state within a state that hosted, armed, and trained the Mujahideen, with Washington’s patronage and Saudi largesse. Pakistan became the home base for terrorists of all hues including Al Qaeda. 

The inscrutable ISI conveniently used terror to destabilize both Kashmir and Afghanistan, outsmarting the naïve United States which saw Islamabad as a trusted ally in the 'war on terror'. 

Growing literature on the Talibanisation of Pakistan shows why and how the US failed to put down the Taliban, which, with oxygen provided covertly by the ISI, has made a triumphant return to Kabul.

Don’t be surprised that the US tracked down Osama bin Laden so near Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s military headquarters. The fact is that the link between the Al Qaeda chief and the ISI began as far back as the late 1980s. That is when Al Qaeda was formed, with many of the foundational meetings taking place in Pakistan. Osama used to enjoy the protection of the ISI; indeed, his initial meetings with Taliban chief Mullah Omar were facilitated by the ISI.

ISI's diabolical agenda 

According to renowned Pakistani journalist Amir Mir's revealing book "Talibanisation of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11" (Pentagon Security International, New Delhi),, with the backing of the ISI and the Taliban regime, Osama reportedly began to expand the activities of Al Qaeda for global jihad. Focussed on its regional agenda of fomenting trouble in Jammu and Kashmir and strengthening the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the ISI colluded with Osama to establish training camps inside Afghanistan to host, indoctrinate and train foreign fighters who could reinforce pro-Kashmir jihadi groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), support the Taliban regime, and promote a pro-Pakistan Islamist agenda from Chechnya, through Uzbekistan, to China.

Of course, when the US declared war on Osama and the Taliban, Pakistan reluctantly extended cooperation – for its own survival. So the ISI began to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. This is when the US got hoodwinked. By the time the truth dawned on the West, it was too late. “Pakistan, not Iraq, was a patron of terrorism and had closer ties with Osama and Al Qaeda leading up to the 9/11 attacks,” said an American official report in 2004. In the process, the ISI – which India had correctly identified as terror Inc’s controller – became an enigma for much of the West. It was former Pakistan Ambassador to Washington Hussain Haqqani who hit the nail on the head: “The ISI defines what is or is not good for Pakistan… Instead of implementing the state policy, the ISI virtually makes its own policies for the state.”

The Pakistan-sponsored terror world included Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the man who oversaw the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, Ajmal Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist caught in Mumbai (and hanged by India), LeT founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) founder Maulana Masood Azhar, don-turned-terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen and many other outfits. 

The ISI oversaw the beheading of US journalist Daniel Pearl. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was conveniently blamed by the Pakistani state on Baitullah Mehsud, another ISI creation. Once the ISI began promoting a hardline Sunni agenda, a bloody sectarian war that Pakistan witnessed was inevitable. Unlike in India, even the Tableeghi Jamaat in Pakistan acquired a militant face.

Pakistan Army chief Pervez Musharraf employed terrorism as an instrument of state policy both in Afghanistan and Kashmir to advance the so-called geostrategic agenda – a continuation of what Zia ul-Haq unleashed – while claiming to work for a breakthrough in India-Pakistan relations. Musharraf may have changed gears after the US invasion of Afghanistan but he played tricks with Washington too, always defending the ISI’s Janus face. Pakistan’s double game vis-à-vis the West left tens of thousands dead and Afghanistan in tatters. On paper, the ISI was hunting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, occasionally feeding bones to the US!

ISI's backing of LeT,  JeM

In his authoritative and fascinating book, Amir Mir says neither the Lashkar-e-Toiba nor Hafiz Saeed would have grown from strength to strength had they not enjoyed the ISI’s backing. He mocks at Pakistan’s refusal to extradite Saeed to India. “When the state wants to detain an individual in countries like Pakistan, no matter how influential he or she is, nobody is beyond its reach.” Jaish-e-Mohammad’s birth was seen as an ISI ploy to keep the jihadi groups divided so that they could be managed to wage a controlled jihad in Kashmir. When the Indo-Pakistan peace process slowed down, Musharraf reactivated the JeM to re-launch cross-border offensives in Kashmir.

Not only were two high-ranking ISI offices present on the tarmac in Kandahar when a hijacked Indian Airlines plane landed there in 1999, but an ISI agent was a witness when Daniel Pearl was brutally killed. Before Musharraf flew to Agra for talks with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001, Dawood Ibrahim was given a fake Pakistani passport and sent off to Singapore and Hong Kong. He returned to Karachi from Dubai in July so that Musharraf could assert in Agra that Dawood was not in Pakistan.

Of course, a stage came when large sections of Islamists turned against the Pakistani military for supporting the US war on Afghanistan, with suicide bombings coming to haunt Pakistan. Even then the ISI – despite taking hits from terrorists --continued to patronize militancy although some deemed to have outlived their usefulness were allowed to be destroyed. The ISI’s guardianship of terror groups led to the inevitable Talibanisation of Pakistan at the cost of the secular space in politics.

There are those who believe that support for Pakistani militants fighting in Kashmir and Afghanistan indirectly promoted sectarian violence in Pakistan and that the time has come for Islamabad to bring the ISI squarely under the civilian government’s control. But this is easier said than done. Having defeated first the Soviet Union, and then outsmarted the US in Afghanistan, who in Pakistan will dare to bell the ISI?

(The writer is a veteran journalist and strategic analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at ranjini17@hotmail.com)