Author: Douglas Jehl
Publication: The New York Times
Date: February 20, 2002
In a significant signal of its change
in course, Pakistan has begun to disband two major units of its powerful
intelligence service that had close links to Islamic militants in Afghanistan
and Kashmir, senior Pakistani military and intelligence officials said
today.
The change has not been publicly
announced. But the officials described it as one of the most significant
shifts emerging from Pakistan's decision to align itself with the West
during the crisis in Afghanistan and to reduce ties with Islamic militants
there and in Kashmir, a disputed region that has long been the source of
conflict with India.
The officials said the move would
result in the transfer of perhaps 40 percent of forces assigned to the
secretive organization, the Inter- Services Intelligence agency, which
draws its manpower from the military. The agency's size is an official
secret, but some officials said the cut could amount to at least 4,000
people, from a force of perhaps 10,000.
Last month, President Pervez Musharraf
pledged in a speech that his country would fight terrorism in all its forms.
Since then, his government has banned several Islamic groups and has announced
the arrests of about 2,000 militants. The changes described within the
intelligence service would be an even more tangible sign of his resolve.
The changes were described by the
officials as highly sensitive. The organization, whose headquarters here
is surrounded by brick walls and guard towers, is one of the country's
most powerful forces, and quests by the American government and forces
within Pakistan for its reform have until now been rebuffed.
The senior officers of the Afghanistan
and Kashmir units have already been transferred, and the others are being
ordered to return to other military units, the officials said. None have
been disciplined, but the United States has requested permission to interview
several dozen of them to learn more about their ties to the militants.
That request is still being weighed by the Pakistani authorities, several
officials said.
Working closely with the American
Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan's intelligence agency established
close ties with Islamic militants in Afghanistan during the 1980's, at
the time of the American- backed effort to support the mujahedeen forces
working to oust the Soviet occupation force.
While the Afghanistan department
appears to have been shut down entirely, the officials indicated that it
is proving more difficult to cut off what has been a steady flow of covert
intelligence and other support for militants in Kashmir.
Closing down the Afghan unit is
a signal that Pakistan intends to support the new government in Afghanistan
and serves General Musharraf's purpose of curtailing support for the Islamic
militant movements in Pakistan that provided strong support for the Taliban.
For years, the Pakistani intelligence
agency has also been the principal liaison with the Islamic militants fighting
in Indian-controlled Kashmir, including groups regarded by the United States
as terrorist organizations.
As early as 1988, under the government
of Benazir Bhutto, a commission led by the Air Force chief, Marchal Zulfikar
Ali Khan, warned that the intelligence organization had the makings of
a de facto government. Over the last decade, it has been credited with
making and breaking of political careers and with causing civilian governments
to fall.
General Musharraf, who took power
in a 1999 coup, has long had close relations with many officers within
the agency. But in October, at the time he agreed to break relations with
the Taliban, he also dismissed the agency's chief and later sidelined several
others, in a first attempt to sever connections with Islamic militants
in Afghanistan and Kashmir. But other senior officers within the agency,
and particularly the Afghan and Kashmir units, were thought to have maintained
close ties with militant organizations.
The ties between the intelligence
agency and militant organizations has become an issue in the case of Daniel
Pearl, the Wall Street Journal correspondent who was kidnapped last month
in the Pakistani city of Karachi. He is still missing, even though the
chief suspect in his disappearance, the British-born militant Ahmed Omar
Sheikh, has been in custody for more than a week.
Still, the broad hints in Pakistani
newspapers and from some Pakistani officials that what are described in
print only as "non-police agencies" have detailed knowledge of the case
have raised questions about a possible connection to the intelligence agency.
Two former officials linked to it were detained for questioning last week
in an effort to learn more about the case.
A senior intelligence officer said
in an interview today that he had no doubt that the plans to eliminate
the two units represented a major about- face. "This has been a major change
for Pakistan," he said.
"The Afghanistan cell has been completely
closed down and the Kashmir cell has been reduced to an intelligence-gathering
detachment," a second Pakistani military intelligence official said. "Senior
officers of the two cells have already been repatriated to their parent
units while others are under transfer."
Still, new signs have emerged of
opposition to General Musharraf's change of course.
Pakistani authorities said today
that on Monday, they intercepted an apparent effort to fire rocket-propelled
artillery rounds at an airport in Karachi where international forces, including
those of the United States, are based.
In a search that began after one
rocket hit a home on Saturday, at least four 107-millimeter rounds were
recovered, they said, all linked to timing devices that had apparently
failed to carry out a planned launch.
No one was arrested in a raid that
uncovered the rockets, but their discovery was described by Pakistani authorities
as further evidence of a backlash against General Musharraf and his decision
to crack down on Islamic militants, including Jaish-e- Muhammad, the group
linked to Mr. Pearl's abduction.
In the changes under way, Mr. Musharraf
is thought to be carrying out only limited reforms, in that they would
still leave the agency as the leading force for intelligence operations.
He is depending on Lt. Gen. Ehsan ul-Haq, a loyal friend and moderate whom
he installed last fall as the agency's chief, to carry out the changes.
General Ehsan had previously served
as the head of Pakistan's military intelligence branch, and is respected
within the army and by American intelligence officials, with whom he has
worked closely. A senior intelligence official said today that the 40 percent
reduction would primarily be in military personnel who had been temporarily
assigned to the intelligence service, mainly to its Afghan unit, and who
would be reassigned to their parent units in the army's infantry, armor,
artillery and other forces.
As part of the changes, the army's
corps of military intelligence is now supposed to be the main source of
intelligence officers, instead of those officers being drawn from all kinds
of military units. Domestic political intelligence is to be transferred
gradually to the civilian Intelligence Bureau.
Some of the most covert functions
of the intelligence agency might also be relocated in the Intelligence
Bureau, one senior official said, noting that the civilian agency is heavily
populated by retired officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Still, it may be hard to break with
the past.
"The reluctance to shut down Kashmir-related
operations has two reasons," one intelligence official said. "One, Pakistan
cannot trust India and cannot close down intelligence gathering or even
special operations against its traditional enemy. Second, the military
and intelligence officers are disturbed by the loss of Afghanistan already.
It is not prudent to disturb them further with the loss of the Kashmir
front altogether."
