Inter-Services Intelligence

The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (also Inter-Services Intelligence or I.S.I.) is the principal intelligence body of the nation of Pakistan. The ISI provided most of the operational and organizational leadership during the U.S.-funded insurgency in Afghanistan against the USSR. It was also critical in supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. India accuses the ISI of supporting rebels in the separatist Kashmir region, but Pakistan maintains that the ethnic instability in India is playing out in Kashmir by indigenous freedom fighters.

History

The ISI was created in 1948, and much later 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.

During the Soviet invasion from 1979–1989, the ISI monitored the activities of and provided advice and support to the mujahideen. The ISI trained about 83,000 Afghan mujahideen between 1983 and 1997, and dispatched them to Afghanistan.

Since its inception, one of the goals of the ISI has been to gather intelligence in India. ISI has allegedly supported various insurgent groups throughout India, in locations such as the Punjab, Kashmir, and Assam, complementing the "moral" support offered by the Pakistani government to these groups. While it has yet to provide evidence, India accuses the ISI of complicity in various domestic attacks on its soil (including the Mumbai and the Parliament House) in addition to the insurgence-prone areas.

Also Read

• General Mitha

References

• ISBN 0850528607 – By ISI brigadier Mohammad Yousaf; Afghanistan the Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower.
• ISBN 1594200076 – By Steve Coll; Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
• ISBN 1574885502 – Brassey's International Intelligence Yearbook.
• ISBN 041530797X – By Jerrold E Schneider, P R Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, Stephen Phillip Cohen; Perception, Politics and Security in South Asia: The Compound Crisis in 1990
• ISBN 0802141242 – By George Crile; Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History

External links

• Intelligence Knowledge base
• Inter-Services Intelligence
• Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG)
• Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – freedomfiles.org