Daily Times

The failure of Inter-Services Intelligence to intercept consecutive terror attacks on Pakistan’s military installations, and its intransigence against maintaining professional intelligence cooperation with civilian intelligence agencies, or even considering Intelligence Bureau as an older civilian brother during the last four decades, forced Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to restructure the IB and make it more effective to meet internal and external security threats. The need to reform or restructure Pakistani intelligence does not spring from any desire to ape the US or Europe; this is a constant need as there has been no broad-based exercise to restructure the country’s intelligence apparatus and make the civilian agencies more effective than in the past. In Pakistan, unfortunately, different military regimes suppressed political forces and strengthened sectarian mafia groups, subjugated the silent majority through radical mullahs under the cover of Sharia and trained militants to fight inside India and Afghanistan. These policies of dictators destabilised the country. The experience of military regimes has not been a positive one. The army supported sectarian mullahs and weakened democratic forces. As a result the country has been in a state of despondency.
On April 3, 2014, Pakistani newspapers published news stories about the resolve of the Prime Minister to restructure the country’s intelligence agencies, generating a hope that Nawaz Sharif wants to counter insurgency and extremism with a professional national mechanism. The Intelligence Bureau, which never received attention from either civilian or military governments during the last 65 years, is now trying to stand on its feet and challenge the militarisation of the intelligence mechanism in Pakistan. The Prime Minister, a source told this scribe, allocated huge funds to the Intelligence Bureau to recruit and employ more agents to meet internal and external challenges the country faces. The Intelligence Bureau is the country’s main civilian agency that functions under the direct control of the Prime Minister, tackling terrorism, insurgency and extremism. The way military intelligence has operated in the past was not a traditional or cultural way. Inter-Services Intelligence, Military Intelligence and other military intelligence units mostly concentrated on countering international terrorism. They never gave any importance to internal security threats in the past. Inter-Services Intelligence began as the external intelligence wing of the army, supported militant groups, sent them to India and Afghanistan and served the interests of the military establishment. These self-designed strategies and policies of civilian and military regimes isolated the country in the international community.
The list of problems faced by the Pakistani intelligence machine is long. The Intelligence Bureau also played a political role in the past. In 2008, a case was filed in Pakistan’s Supreme Court against the alleged involvement of the agency in destabilising the Shahbaz Sharif government in Punjab. The Intelligence Bureau has also spied on journalists and politicians in a non-traditional manner, which badly affected its professional reputation. The Prime Minister now realises that a legislative and structural umbrella is a must under which intelligence agencies must function without military and political interference, while remaining committed to their central mission. On February 25, 2014, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif approved and published the National Internal Security Policy (2014-2018) and introduced a new mechanism to counter internal and external threats. The involvement of the army and air force in tackling insurgency in the tribal areas and Waziristan caused misunderstanding. Pakistani military and civilian governments relying on US drone attacks did not give any importance to the intelligence reports of the country’s agencies. The use of force in one’s own country against one’s own people always sends uncomfortable signals. In the intelligence relationship between police intelligence, the Intelligence Bureau, Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence, lack of trust has been a longstanding concern in civilian circles. The majority of the members of intelligence agencies of the country belong to different sectarian groups. This illegal affiliation also directed intelligence operations on sectarian bases. Poor data collection with regard to the activities of militant sectarian organisations and their networks across the country is a challenging problem. Many criminals who joined terrorist groups are not tracked and profiled effectively. Many terrorists currently arrested have not been recognised properly, and these groups continue to propagate their agendas through their weekly, daily and monthly publications. Extremism and militancy is hardwired into society and the country has been divided into sects. No single political force has the capacity to turn the tide.
In his new report, Monish Gulati has outlined the basic role of intelligence in the modern world: “Intelligence agencies must be clear about the challenges to the security of the state. Their ambit will perforce need to extend the entire gamut of collecting intelligence on internal security, external security, military intelligence — both tactical and strategic, economic and commercial intelligence as well as new data in science and technology related issues. Intelligence is essential but its purpose must be to inform action. It has a broader range of applications in the context of modern day threats.” In view of the aforementioned established mechanism of intelligence, Pakistani intelligence agencies now need to change their way of operations in countering extremism and militancy across the country. The Prime Minister’s decision to restructure the intelligence infrastructure received worldwide appreciation. Mr Sharif is now in a position to take stern steps and wants to try improving the operational capabilities of his country’s intelligence agencies. The creation of an effective intelligence infrastructure to meet internal and external challenges must necessarily be taken as a long-term policy. We hope Nawaz Sharif will make civilian intelligence more effective to be able to counter the Taliban insurgency with a professional mechanism.

The writer is the author of Whose Army? Afghanistan’s Future and the Blueprint for Civil War and can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com