ISLAMABAD – The rare second extension being given by the government to Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt General Ahmed Shuja Pasha is mainly due to the high level of confidence that army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has in his person and also because of the grave internal and external security challenges confronting the country.
It was not more than a year after Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani gave General Kayani a three-year extension that the government decided to retain the current ISI chief as well for another two years, albeit his extension would be in two phases, each for a year. This is the second extension being given to General Pasha as he is already on a year-long extension given in March last year after he reached retirement age. His second “tenure” comes to an end on March 18.
“The decision to give another extension to the ISI chief could be announced anytime before March 18. All this has happened as a result of a strong desire of the army chief who wants to retain General Pasha as ISI chief owing to his key role in the fight against terrorism at a time when the country is facing serious security challenges,” said a senior security official requesting anonymity.
He said the duo of General Kayani and General Pasha had been instrumental and had a major role in the recent success of Pakistan’s anti-terrorism efforts in the tribal regions and the rest of the country. However, the official admitted that it was a very rare thing for the government to give a second extension to any ISI chief and belied the serious nature of problems facing the country and also how worried Pakistan’s security establishment was about them.
General Ghulam Jilani Khan, who was retained after his retirement by General Zia-ul-Haq, is the only other ISI chief to receive an extension aside from Pasha. Former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had promoted General Zia-ul-Haq in part because the General Jilani was actively promoting him. General Zia, in return, retained General Jilani as head of the ISI after his scheduled retirement.
Another unprecedented occurrence in Pakistan’s major spy agency was the appointment of General (r) Shamsur Rahman Kallu as ISI chief by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. General Kallu, On May 26, 1989, replaced then ISI chief Lt General Hameed Gul despite the former being retired. No retired army officer has held the post before or since.
The security official said that there was no resemblance between those two cases and the extension of the incumbent ISI chief as one could argue the former senior army officers were rewarded on political grounds but in the case of General Pasha, it was purely a matter of national interest. Before his promotion as three-star general and appointment as the ISI director general, Pasha served as Director General of Military Operation (DGMO), a key position in Pakistan Army.
Another official said that another reason for General Pasha’s extension was his ability to get along with the US despite the ongoing diplomatic row between Islamabad and Washington over Raymond Davis, an American arrested on January 27 for killing two Pakistanis in Lahore.
“The US administration knows very well that General Kayani and General Pasha were committed to the Washington-led anti-terrorism campaign and they want them to be there for a while to jointly face the menace of terrorism,” he said.
“At a time when the US-led war in Afghanistan is entering a critical stage, Washington will definitely like to deal with an ISI chief who is familiar. The Americans have already been told about the government’s decision to retain General Pasha as ISI chief and they were pleased to hear that,” the official said.
