The Prime Minister is expected to finalise the name of the next Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in August, well before the retirement of incumbent DG ISI Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam who will reach the age of superannuation on October 2014, defence sources said.
While former president and CoAS General Pervez Musharraf enjoyed self-granted extensions but it was the then DG ISI Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha and the then CoAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani who were granted extensions during the 2008-2013 PPP-led coalition government and insiders told this correspondent that Nawaz Sharif is unlikely to follow this trend.
A well-known legal expert Colonel Inam-ur-Raheem (Retd) claimed that it is not binding on the Prime Minister to select the shortlisted candidates submitted by Chief of Army Staff (CoAS). In the past two DG ISIs were appointed by civilian governments without the consent of CoAS and both were largely ineffective.
One was Nawaz Sharif-appointed Lieutenant General Ziauddin Butt - a man appointed without the consent of the then CoAS Pervez Musharraf. In an interview in 2010, talking about the 2008 military coup, Ziauddin acknowledged that, "in the ISI, most of the postings were done by GHQ and hence if the DG ISI did not enjoy the confidence of the chief of army staff, he was not just ineffective but also helpless despite heading one of the strongest intelligence agencies in the country".
In another case, Benazir Bhutto brought Lieutenant General Shamsur Rahman Kallu, a known PPP loyalist and retired officer, as ISI chief. But in the horse-trading drama known as the Operation Midnight Jackal and in the weeks prior to her government's dismissal on August 6, 1990 - Lieutenant General Kallu badly let her down, as ISI's own units under his command were used by the military establishment reportedly in defiance of his orders to topple her government.
Incumbent DG ISI Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam was appointed on 19th March, 2012 after the retirement of Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha. Four other Lieutenants-General of Pakistan Army will also retire in October, 2014: Corps Commander Mangla, Lieutenant General Tariq Khan, Corps Commander Gujranwala, Lieutenant General Saleem Nawaz, Corps Commander Peshawar Lieutenant General Khalid Rabbani and Corps Commander Karachi Lieutenant General Sajjad Ghani.
The legal expert stated that the Prime Minister also has the options to select a retired army officer or a civilian to head the ISI. Civilians serve as head of Russian spy agency, Indian's RAW and US's CIA, he stated. He further said that ISI is the eyes and ears of the government which helps it to pre-empt any threat to the country by sharing intelligence information with the government. He brushed aside the perception that ISI is doing military oriented tasks and stated that the agency is a strategic partner of the three armed forces as well as the government and provides and shares intelligence with its partners.
Sources said traditionally, the CoAS recommends the names of candidates for the slot of DG ISI to Prime Minister for approval after consultations with the heads of Air Force, Navy and Chairman Joint chief of staff committee. General Secretary Pakistan ex-Service Men Society said that the candidate for DG ISI should be one who should have three to four years left for retirement. He should have professional experience of working in intelligence agency and must have an understanding with CoAS.
The ISI was established as an independent intelligence service in 1948 in order to strengthen the sharing of military intelligence between the three branches of Pakistan's armed forces in the aftermath of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947-48, sometimes known as the First Kashmir War, which had exposed weaknesses in intelligence gathering, sharing and co-ordination between the Army, Air Force and Navy.
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