Assignment topic

Credit assignment by
Atta Rahman Qureshi [ 19 BS (IT)-114 ]

Under the supervision of Mam Sehrish

Submission date: 21 Oct 2019

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SHAHEED BENAZIR BHUTTO

UNIVERSITY, SBA

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 Content
Introduction OF ISI
Organization
Departments Of ISI
Director-Generals Of ISI
Recruitment and training
Major operations
Methods
Operation history: Afghanistan
Operation history: India

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Introduction

Inter Service Intelligence (ISI)

Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) world’s most powerful intelligence agency of Pakistan. ISI founded in
1948 by a British army officer who had later joined the Pak Army, “Major General William Cawthorne”.
He have served in ISI for the nine year (1950 to 1959).
The responsibility of ISI is get the information, process the information and analyze it for the national
security purpose. The primary function of ISI is gathering the intelligence for the Pakistan and they report
directly to director general. The ISI consist of Army serving officers, from Pak Army, Pak Navy, and Pak
Air Force, and also civilians can join ISI but there is huge process inter in ISI, civilians must have little
large process for joining ISI. Since 1971, the ISI has been handed by a serving “Three star general” of the
Pak Army, who is appointed by the “Prime minster” on the recommendation of the “Chief of army staff”
who recommends three officers for the job and then PM select the one of them. The current DG ISI is
“Faiz Hameed” he appointed on (17 June 2019) and the DG ISI report directly to PM of Pakistan and
Chief of Army.

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ISI is much more powerful than Pakistan's other spy outfits, Military Intelligence (MI) and the civilian
Intelligence Bureau (IB), (AI), (ACAT), (CTD), (CID), (IB). Intelligence Bureau, Federal Investigation
Agency (FIA), Research and Analysis Wing, Financial Monitoring Unit National Crises Management
Cell National Intelligence Directorate Anti-Narcotics Force Ministry of Defence Air Intelligence Naval
Intelligence National Accountability Bureau Directorate of Air Intelligence Department of Criminal
Intelligence In 2011 the ISI becomes world’s powerful intelligence agency. It has also dismissed
suggestions that the ISI is run as “a state within a state”.

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Organization

DG ISI Structure

ISI organization structure is like that.

ISI have three wings (Internal wing) is headed 2 star general, (External Wing) headed by 2 star General,
(foreign Relation wing) headed by 2 star General, and these three wings directly report to DG ISI.

1. Internal Wing –responsible for domestic intelligence, domestic counter-intelligence, counter-

espionage, and counter-terrorism.
2. External Wing – responsible for external intelligence, external counter-intelligence, and
espionage.
3. Foreign Relations Wing – responsible for diplomatic intelligence and foreign relations
intelligence.

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Departments

Covert Action Division

Covert Action Division is generally considered the most secretive special operations force of
Pakistan. It is responsible for paramilitary and covert operations as well as special activities.
It is tasked to collect intelligence in dense hostile environments and act as a special warfare
unit of ISI. Founded: 1800. Headquarters: Islamabad.

Joint Intelligence X
Coordinates all the other departments in the ISI. Intelligence and information gathered from the
other departments are sent to JIX which prepares and processes the information and from which
prepares reports which are presented.

Joint Intelligence Bureau

Responsible for gathering anti-state intelligence and fake drugs, fake currency and TTP.

Joint Counter intelligence Bureau

Focused on RAW India

Joint Intelligence North

Exclusively responsible for the Jammu and Kashmir region and Northern Areas.

Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous

Responsible for espionage, including offensive intelligence operations, in other countries.

Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau

Operates intelligence collections along the India-Pakistan border. The JSIB is the ELINT,
COMINT, and SIGINT directorate that is charged to divert the attacks from the foreign non-
communications electromagnetic radiations emanating from other than nuclear detonations or
radioactive sources.

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Joint Intelligence Technical
Deals with development of science and technology to advance the Pakistan intelligence gathering.
The directorate is charged to take steps against the electronic warfare attacks in Pakistan. Without
any exception, officers from this divisions are reported to be engineer officers and military
scientists who deal with the military promotion of science and technology. There are also separate
explosives and a chemical and biological warfare sections.

SS Directorate
Comprises officers from Special services group [SSG]. It monitors the terrorist groups activities
that operate against the state of Pakistan. The SS Directorate is comparable to that of The Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Clandestine Service (NCS), and responsible for special
operations against terrorists.

Political Internal Division

Monitored the financial funding of the right-wing political science sphere against the left-wing
political science circles. This department was involved in providing funds to the anti-left wing
forces during the general elections of 1965, 1977, 1985, 1988, and 1990. The department is now
"inactive" since March 2012 with the new Director General taking the operational charge of the
ISI.

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List Of Director-Generals Of ISI

Director General Start of Term End of Term

1 Syed Shahid Hamid 1948 1950

2 Robert Cawthome 1950 1959

3 Riaz Hussain 1959 1966

4 Mohammad Akbar Khan 1966 1971

5 Ghulam Jilani Khan 1971 1977

6 Muhammad Riaz 1977 1979

7 Akhtar Abdur Rahman 21 June 1979 29 March 1987

8 Hameed Gul March 1987 May 1989

9 Shamsur Rahman Kallu May 1989 August 1990

10 Asad Durrani August 1990 March 1992

11 Javed Nasir March 1992 May 1993

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 12 Javed Ashraf Qazi May 1993 October 1995

13 Naseem Rana October 1995 October 1998

14 Ziauddin Butt October 1998 October 1999

15 Mahmud Ahmed October 1999 October 2001

16 Ehsan ul Haq October 2001 October 2004

17 Ashfaq Parvez Kayani 3 October 2004 8 October 2007

18 Nadeem Taj October 2007 October 2008

19 Ahmad Shuja Pasha October 2008 19 March 2012

20 Zaheerul Islam 19 March 2012 6 November 2014

21 Rizwan Akhtar 7 November 2014 11 December 2016

22 Naveed Mukhtar 11 December 2016 1 October 2018

23 Asim Munir 10 October 2018 16 June 2019

24 Faiz Hameed 17 June 2019 Present

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Recruitment and training

Both civilians and members of the armed forces can join the ISI. For civilians, recruitment is advertised
and is jointly handled by the Federal Public Services Commission (FPSC) and civilian ISI agents are
considered employees of the Ministry of Defence. The FPSC conducts various examinations testing the
candidate's knowledge of current affairs, English and various analytical abilities. Based on the results, the
FPSC shortlists the candidates and sends the list to the ISI who conduct the initial background checks.
The selected candidates are then invited for an interview which is conducted by a joint committee
comprising both ISI and FPSC officials, then the selected persons are sent to Defence Services
intelligence Academy (DSIA) for 6 months of training. Later these officers are transferred to different
sections for open source information where they serve for five years. Officers after five years of basic
service are entrusted with sensitive jobs and declared the core team of ISI.

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Major operations

Functions

Collection of information and extraction of intelligence from information

ISI obtains information critical to Pakistan's strategic interests. Both overt and covert means are
adopted.

Classification of intelligence
Data is sifted through, classified as appropriate, and filed with the assistance of the computer
network in ISI's headquarters in Islamabad.

Aggressive intelligence
The primary mission of ISI includes aggressive intelligence which
comprises espionage, psychological warfare, subversion, sabotage.

Counterintelligence
ISI has a dedicated section which spies against enemy's intelligence collection.

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Methods

Human Intelligence
ISI is a very well-funded organization. It employs a large number of different types of human
resource which share information voluntarily or involuntarily. The ISI agents often build a very
warm relationship with the subjects and take a long time to build trust. Initially, Indian Muslims
were most attempted targets but now high caste Hindu diaspora is the real attraction of ISI agents
for espionage.

Diplomatic missions
Diplomatic missions provide an ideal cover and ISI centers in a target country are generally
located on the embassy premises.

Multinationals
ISI operatives find good covers in multinational organizations. Non-governmental
organizations and cultural programmers are also popular screens to shield ISI activities.

Media
International media centers can easily absorb ISI operatives and provide freedom of movement.

Collaboration with other agencies

ISI maintains active collaboration with other secret services in various countries. Its contacts with
Saudi Arabian Intelligence Services, Chinese Intelligence, the American CIA and
British MI6 have been well known.

Third Country Technique

ISI has been active in obtaining information and operating through third countries like
Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Turkey and China.

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 Operation history: Afghanistan

(1982) ISI, CIA and Mossad carried out a covert transfer of Soviet-made weapons and Lebanese
weapons captured by the Israelis during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 and their subsequent
transfer to Pakistan and then into Afghanistan. All knowledge of this weapon transfer was kept secret and
was only made public recently.

(1982–1997) ISI are believed to have access to Osama bin Laden in the past.ISI played a central
role in the U.S.-backed guerrilla war to oust the Soviet Army from Afghanistan in the 1980s. That Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA)-backed effort flooded Pakistan with weapons and with Afghan, Pakistani and
Arab "mujahideen", who were motivated to fight as a united force protecting fellow Muslims in Soviet
occupied Afghanistan. The CIA relied on the ISI to train fighters, distribute arms, and channel money.
The ISI trained about 83,000 Afghan mujahideen between 1983 and 1997, and dispatched them to
Afghanistan. B. Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group, an Indian think-tank, claims that the Central
Intelligence Agency through the ISI promoted the smuggling of heroin into Afghanistan in order to turn
the Soviet troops into heroin addicts and thus greatly reducing their fighting potential.

(1986) Worrying that among the large influx of Afghan refugees that come into Pakistan due to
the Soviet-Afghan war were members of KHAD (Afghan Intelligence), the ISI successfully convinced
Mansoor Ahmed who was the Charge-de-Affairs of the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad to turn his back on
the Soviet backed Afghan government. He and his family were secretly escorted out of their residence
and were given safe passage on a London bound British Airways flight in exchange for classified
information in regard to Afghan agents in Pakistan. The Soviet and Afghan diplomats tried their best to
find the family but were unsuccessful.

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 (1994) The Taliban regime that the ISI supported after 1994 to suppress warlord fighting and in
hopes of bringing stability to Afghanistan proved too rigid in its Islamic interpretations and too fond of
the Al-Qaeda based on its soil. Despite receiving large sums of aid from Pakistan, the Taliban leader
Mullah Omar is reported to have insulted a visiting delegation of Saudi Prince Sultan and an ISI general
asking that the Taliban turn over bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. Following the 9/11 attack on the United
States allegedly by Al-Qaeda, Pakistan felt it necessary to cooperate with the US and the Northern
Alliance.

(2001 onwards) American officials believe members of the Pakistani intelligence service are
alerting militants to imminent American missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas. There is also evidence
that the ISI helped plan the July 7, 2009, bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul. This conclusion is
based on signals intelligence between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants. In October 2009,
Davood Moradian, a senior policy adviser to foreign minister Spanta, said the British and American
governments were fully aware of the ISI's role but lacked the courage to confront Islamabad.

(2010) A new report by the London School of Economics (LSE) claimed to provide the most
concrete evidence yet that the ISI is providing funding, training and sanctuary to the Taliban insurgency
on a scale much larger than previously thought. The report's author Matt Waldman spoke to nine Taliban
field commanders in Afghanistan and concluded that Pakistan's relationship with the insurgents ran far
deeper than previously realised. Some of those interviewed suggested that the organization even attended
meetings of the Taliban's supreme council, the Quetta Shura.

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 Operation history: India

(1950s) The ISI's Covert Action Division was used in assisting the insurgents in India's North-
East.
(1960s) In the late 1960s assists the Sikh Home Rule Movement of London-based Charan Singh
Panchi, which was subsequently transformed into the Khalistan Movement, headed by JagjitSingh
Chauhan in which many other members of the Sikh diaspora in Europe, United States and Canada joined
and then demanded the separate country of Khalistan.
(1965) the 1965 war in Kashmir provoked a major crisis in intelligence. When the war started,
there was a complete collapse of the operations of all the intelligence agencies, after the commencement
of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, was apparently unable to locate an Indian armored division due to its
preoccupation with political affairs. Ayub Khan set up a committee headed by General Yahya Khan to
examine the working of the agencies.
(1969–1974) The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and ISI worked in tandem with the Nixon
administration in assisting the Khalistan movement in Punjab
(1980) The PAF Field Intelligence Unit at their base in Karachi in July 1980 captured an Indian
agent. He was interrogated and revealed that a large network of Indian spies were functioning in Karachi.
The agent claimed that these spies, in addition to espionage, had also assassinated a few armed personnel.
He also said the leader of the spy ring was being headed by the food and beverages manager at the
Intercontinental Hotel in Karachi and a number of serving Air Force officers and ratings were on his
payroll.

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 The ISI decided to survey the manager to see who he was in contact with, but then President of
Pakistan Zia-ul Haq superseded and wanted the manager and anyone else involved in the case arrested
immediately. It was later proven that the manager was completely innocent.
(1983) Ilam Din also known as Ilmo was an infamous Indian spy working from Pakistan. He had
eluded being captured many times but on March 23 at 3 a.m., Ilmo and two other Indian spies were
apprehended by Pakistani Rangers as they were illegally crossing into Pakistan from India. Their mission
was to spy and report back on the new military equipment that Pakistan will be showing in their annual
March 23 Pakistan day parade. Ilmo after being thoroughly interrogated was then forced by the ISI to
send false information to his R&AW handlers in India. This process continued and many more Indian
spies in Pakistan were flushed out, such as Roop Lal.
(1984) ISI uncovered a secret deal in which naval base facilities were granted by Indian Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi to the USSR in Vizag and the Andaman & Nicobar Island and the alleged
attachment of KGB advisers to the then Lieutenant General Sunderji who was the commander of
Operation Bluestar in the Golden Temple in Amritsar in June 1984.
(1984) ISI failed to perform a proper background check on the British company which supplied the
Pakistan Army with its Arctic-weather gear. When Pakistan attempted to secure the top of the Siachen
Glacier in 1984, it placed a large order for Arctic-weather gear with the same company that also supplied
the Indian Army with its gear. Indians were easily alerted to the large Pakistani purchase and deduced that
this large purchase could be used to equip troops to capture the glacier.
(1985) A routine background check on various staff members working for the Indian embassy raised
suspicions on an Indian woman who worked as a school teacher in an Indian School in Islamabad. Her
enthusiastic and too friendly attitude gave her up. She was in reality an agent working for the Research
and Analysis Wing (R&AW). ISI monitored her movements to a hotel in Islamabad where she
rendezvoused with a local Pakistani man who worked as an nuclear engineer for Pakistan Atomic Energy

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Commission. ISI then confronted her and were then able to turn her into a double agent spying on the
Indian Embassy in Islamabad.
(1988) ISI implemented Operation Tupac a three part action plan for covertly supporting the militants
in their fight against the Indian authorities in Kashmir, initiated by President Zia Ul Haq in 1988 after the
failure of "Operation Gibraltar". After success of Operation Tupac, support to militants became Pakistan's
state policy.ISI continues to train and support militants. Hundreds of training camps are known to be
operated by ISI to train militants.

(At present) The Karachi Project

If Indian intelligence sources are to be believed, Indian Mujahedeen (IM) serves as the vanguard of
the ISI sponsored 'Karachi Project', which allegedly uses groups like the LeT and HuJI to train Indian
operatives to carry out blasts in major urban centres as part of a continuous offensive against India.
Tracing its origins to the Soviet-Afghan War, HuJI is a terrorist outfit based in Pakistan with an affiliate
in Bangladesh with strong links to Al-Qa'ida. Theses suspicions are supported by David Coleman
Headley, also known as Daood Gilani, the prime suspect in LeT's Chicago conspiracy, who has allegedly
informed the FBI about 'the LeT and ISI sheltering chief IM operatives like the Bhatkal brothers and
serving and retired Pakistan Army officers being part of the project'. Headley is a Pakistani-American
businessman implicated by the FBI for his role in plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks in association with
LeT.
The unconfirmed presence of Indian Mujahedeen (IM) bases in neighbouring countries may provide
some clues about the contours of the 'Karachi Project'. If indeed an operational reality, the strategy would
have three major objectives: firstly, to give an Indian face to the bombing campaign without raising
suspicions of Pakistani involvement; secondly, to undermine India's rising economic profile by targeting
major economic centres thus curbing foreign direct investment and thirdly, to provoke tougher anti-
terrorist laws and major communal tensions between the Hindu and Muslim communities creating a fresh

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crop of disgruntled recruits for the Jihadist cause. The aim would be to create widespread mayhem to stall
the Indian economic engine and weaken the writ of the state.
The allegations about the 'Karachi Project' are indicative of Islamabad's continued reluctance in
clamping down on cross-border terrorism against India. US National Intelligence Director (Retd) Admiral
Dennis Blair attributes this to 'Islamabad's conviction that militant groups are an important part of its
strategic arsenal to counter India's military and economic advantages'. While a spectacular attack like the
one witnessed in Mumbai may not be on the cards due to the possibility of sparking a major Indo-
Pakistan confrontation, a series of blasts targeting major urban centres and high-profile events such as the
Indian Premier League and the forthcoming 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi is a real threat for the
Indian establishment

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