1.0 Introduction
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; Urdu: بین الخدماتی استخبارات) is Pakistan’s premier all-encompassing intelligence agency. Founded in 1947, ISI has evolved from a humble military intelligence agency into an institution more powerful than Pakistan’s central government. Over the past seven decades, the military’s stranglehold on domestic politics has enabled ISI to function largely as a state within a state. The modern ISI is not only responsible for intelligence collection but also acts as a driver of Pakistani foreign policy and a vehicle for its implementation. [source]
Despite the intelligence agencies’ Orwellian nature, Western Intelligence agencies have collaborated closely with ISI during the Cold War and War on Terror. During the 1980’s, ISI rose to global recognition when it assisted the CIA in backing Mujahideen fighters against the Soviet Union. [source] Despite viewing Pakistan as an ally against communism and then terror, foreign powers have largely misunderstood Pakistan’s, and more importantly ISI’s, regional interests. [source]
From the very inception of Pakistan in 1947, India has posed an existential threat to the Muslim majority country. From Kashmir to Afghanistan, ISI has backed proxy forces to undermine India’s regional influence and ensure Pakistan’s security. Over the decades, ISI has trained and equipped proxies ranging from local militias to Islamist extremists. Aside from the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the success of Pakistan’s proxy warfare has been limited. In fact, ISI’s proxy strategy has often strained relations with international partners who have openly accused Pakistan of sponsoring terrorist organisations. [source]
2.0 Motto and Insignia
2.1 Logos, Badges and Patches
In 2020, Inter-Services Intelligence changed their logo, adopting a golden eagle on a circular green badge (left). ISI’s previous logo (right) featured Pakistan’s national animal, the Markhor, a type of wild goat native South Asia, known for its snake-like horns.
2.2 Motto
Along the top of the Inter-Services Intelligence’s logo, the intelligence agency’s motto is visible:
“Take Your Precautions” (Urdu: “خُذُواحِذرُکُم”)
The motto is taken from verse 4:71 of the Quran which states “O you who have believed, take your precaution and [either] go forth in companies or go forth all together.”. [source]
3.0 Founding History
3.1 In the Ashes of the British Raj
Chaos and existential danger characterised the birth of Pakistan’s Intelligence Community. In 1947, Britain partitioned India along religious lines into two independent states birthing the Republic of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The partition of India unleashed unprecedented communal violence and migration as hostilities broke out between Muslim and Hindu communities. The chaos of partition threatened to undermine Pakistan as waves of Muslim refugees overwhelmed the young nation and destabilised Pakistani society. Pakistan also faced existential external threats too, as the nation inherited Britain’s Imperial era border disputes with India and Afghanistan.
Monitoring the multitude of threats facing Pakistan was a monumental task for the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Pakistan’s successor civilian intelligence agency to the Delhi IB. As tensions increased with India over Kashmir in 1948, Pakistan’s intelligence community found itself overstretched and short on experienced officers. [source]
“Pakistan epitomised the term “security state” from its very beginning due to the traumas of Partition” [source]
3.2 Inter-Services Intelligence establishment
Established in 1948, Inter-Services Intelligence was the brainchild of Major General Sir Walter J. Cawthorn, a former intelligence officer in the British Indian Army and Syed Shahid Hamid, a well-connected Pakistani army brigadier. During a reorganisation of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in the late 1940s, Cawthorn and Hamid aimed to remodel Pakistan’s military intelligence on the British JIB (Joint Intelligence Bureau).
The British model consolidated military intelligence by incorporating economic and political intelligence into the agency’s remit. For Pakistan, the Kashmir War had demonstrated that consolidation was necessary. Especially to understand the totality and complexity of conflict in the border region. ISI’s early years were slow. The new agency suffered from the same issues that blighted Pakistan’s intelligence community as a whole. Namely a shortage of technical personnel and managers. [source]
The Three Branches of ISI in 1949:
- Joint Intelligence Bureau
- Joint Counter Intelligence Bureau
- Joint Signals Intelligence Bureau
Throughout the 1950s, Pakistan’s intelligence community was dominated by the Intelligence Bureau (IB). Unlike ISI who reported through the Commander-in-Chief, IB reported directly to Pakistan’s prime minister. This ensured the agency’s primacy and access to power. Following the 1949 UN ceasefire in Kashmir, the Pakistani government feared losing the remainder of Kashmir. Therefore, throughout the 1950s, the IB spearheaded Pakistan’s unconventional warfare strategy in Kashmir. Meanwhile, ISI remained a second rate intelligence agency, unable to garner the same level of attention from the civilian government as IB.
3.2 The Ayub Khan Military Dictatorship
In 1958, the Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan’s Army, Ayub Khan, launched a successful coup d’etat and overthrew Pakistan’s civilian government. Under Pakistan’s military dictatorship, all members of Pakistan’s intelligence community now answered directly to Khan. However, Pakistan’s three main intelligence agencies, IB, MI and ISI, found themselves in competition due to poorly defined and overlapping responsibilities. Importantly for ISI, as a military man, Khan mistrusted the civilian-run IB which inclined him to favour the military intelligence agencies.
ISI played an important role in consolidating Khan’s position by monitoring criticism of the regime and stifling political opposition. Prior to the 1965 Presidential Election, ISI made their first foray into domestic intelligence when they infiltrated anti-Ayub groups. [source] By the mid-1960s, ISI was the dominant intelligence organisation in Pakistan and underpinned the Khan regime. However, ISI’s preoccupation with suppressing domestic opponents and rigging elections left them woefully unprepared for the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War.
The failures of the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War and general public unrest saw the resignation of Ayub Khan in 1969, which ushered in Pakistan’s transition back to civilian rule in 1971. Throughout the 1970s, the return of Pakistani civilian administration under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto diminished the importance of ISI. [source]
3.3 The Rise of General Zia and ISI Supremacy
In 1977, Pakistan’s civilian authority was once again overthrown by the military. The new president of Pakistan General Zia embarked on an Islamisation of Pakistan. For the ISI, this meant a change in leadership. Zia replaced the Director General of the ISI, Ghulam Jilani, with Mohammed Riaz Khan, a deeply pious Muslim and follower of Sharia. During the 1970s and 80s, Zia shifted ISI focus back to domestic repression by targeting his enemies which ranged from Shia militants to Bhutto loyalists. [source]
Under Zia, ISI’s responsibilities were expanded as the intelligence agency became responsible for coordinating the mujahideen insurgency in Afghanistan and the exporting of terrorism to Punjab in India. By the time of General Zia’s death in 1988, the ISI had been reestablished at the centre of Pakistan power. [source]
4.0 Organisation and Structure
4.1 Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence (DGISI)
In Pakistan, the appointment of a new DGISI typically invites more attention than the appointment of any Prime Minister or President. The position of DGISI is considered amongst the most powerful in Pakistan given ISI’s ability to covertly shape the nation’s domestic and foreign policy. [source] Traditionally, a serving Three Star Lieutenant General from the Pakistani Army is selected to become DGISI. While constitutionally, the Prime Minister appoints the DGISI, the Chief of Army Staff is highly influential on which candidates are recommended and selected.
Since 2021, DGISI Nadeem Anjum has led the Pakistani intelligence agency. Anjum’s appointment created controversy due to the civilian government not being consulted. [source] The controversy created a three week deadlock between the Chief of Army Staff and Prime Minister, Imran Khan. The Army won the debate and Anjum was appointed DGISI in October 2021. [source] In October 2022, Anjum became the first DGISI to publicly address the media when ISI was accused of murdering a prominent Pakistani journalist. [source]
Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum, The 25th Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence (DGISI). Image [source]
4.2 Headquarters
ISI is based in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. The ISI headquarters is discreetly tucked away in a busy civilian sector of the city with a single barrier entrance near a hospital. In 2009, a journalist from the Guardian was invited inside the complex, they described ISI HQ as resembling “a well-funded university” with neat lawns surrounding a central fountain. [source]
An aerial image of the Inter-services Intelligence HQ in Islamabad. Image [source]
4.3 Structure
Under the DGISI there are three Deputy Directors Generals (DDG), each Two Star officers drawn from the Pakistani Military. Each DDG oversees one of the ISI three wings:
The Three Wings of the ISI
- DDG – Political Wing
- DDG-1 – External Wing
- DDG-2 – Administrative Wing
Inter-services Intelligence is then further divided into separate departments [source] [source]:
- Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB) – OSINT and HUMINT
- Joint Counterintelligence Bureau (JCIB) –
- Joint Intelligence North (JIN) – Jammu, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan
- Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM) – Clandestine Collection in Foreign Countries
- Joint Signals Intelligence Bureau (JSIB) – SIGNINT along India-Pakistan Border
- Joint Intelligence X (JIX) – Accounts and Finance
- Joint Intelligence Technical (JIT) – TECHINT and Electronic Warfare Mitigation
- Covert Actions Division – Similar to the US Covert Action Division
- SS Directorate – Responsible for Special Services Group, similar to British SAS
5.0 Notable Operation
5.1 Soviet-Afghan War
Between 1979 and 1989, ISI worked closely with the CIA to undermine the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. During the conflict, ISI supplied sophisticated US weaponry to resistance groups in Afghanistan which gained the Pakistani intelligence agency international recognition. ISI-CIA collaboration played a significant role in unravelling the Soviet invasion with Pakistan funnelling over 75,000 tonnes of US military equipment into Afghanistan between 1983 and 1987. [source]
The ISI established themselves as the main conduit for US military and financial aid to the Afghan Mujahideen. Image [source]
Pakistan’s interest in Afghanistan did not however begin in 1979 nor did it end in 1989 when the Soviet Union withdrew. From Pakistan’s independence in 1947, Afghanistan had been no less of an existential threat than India. [source] Afghanistan had long backed Pashtunistan to breakaway from Pakistan. A friendly or weak government in Kabul was therefore always in Pakistan’s interests.
5.2 Kashmir
Outmatched by India economically and militarily since independence, Pakistan has frequently turned to unconventional means to undermine their Hindu neighbours. Since 1947, Pakistan has sought to clever the Muslim majority border region of Jammu-Kashmir from Indian administration. Following Pakistan’s failure to capture Kashmir during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, Pakistan stepped up its unconventional warfare strategy in the disputed region.
During the 1980s, ISI established the Kashmir bureau to handle operations, logistics and psychological warfare. Through the Kashmir bureau, ISI trained and equipped the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) as well as radical Islamist Kashmiri groups. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) accused Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism on Indian soil. [source]
5.3 War on Terror
Pakistan’s relationship with the US-led War on Terror can be described as “highly ambivalent”. On one hand, Pakistan played a key role in facilitating the 2001 US-led intervention in Afghanistan. On the other hand, Pakistan provided safe haven for radical islamist extremists who targeted Coalition forces. In fact, during the 1990s ISI played a direct role in facilitating the rise of the Taliban, the Afghan regime deemed complicit in Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. [source]
In 2011, the mastermind of the 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, was killed by a team of US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, a city not in Afghanistan but Pakistan. For the past six years, the most wanted man in the world had taken refuge in a compound not far from a Pakistani Military Academy. The location of Bin Laden’s hideout raised serious questions about ISI’s complicity and overall competency: Had the all-seeing ISI turned a blind eye to history’s most infamous terrorist?
During the 1980s and 90s, ISI almost certainly had contacts within al-Qaeda as part of their network of Islamist allies in Afghanistan. While ISI did facilitate pro-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, it is highly unlikely the Pakistani intelligence agency exerted “operational control” over groups such as al-Qaeda. There is no evidence to suggest ISI chose al-Qaeda’s targets or directly supported their operations. [source]
6.0 Conclusion
Inter Services Intelligence’s rise to dominance since 1948 is emblematic of the army’s powerful undercurrent in Pakistani society. Successive Pakistani military dictators have transformed ISI from a military intelligence agency into an all-encompassing leviathan designed to uphold the primacy of the military. As an instrument of the military, ISI has demonstrated that it is the true driver of Pakistani affairs and effectively rules as a state with in a state.
