Inter Services Intelligence

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan appointed a new head of intelligence on Friday, injecting some uncertainty in America's dealings with an agency crucial to its hopes of negotiating a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban and keeping pressure on Al Qaeda. Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam replaced Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who had been in the post since 2008 and was due to retire on March 18th. Islam, the scion of a military family who is currently army commander in the city of Karachi, was considered a likely man for the job. Islam, who was the deputy head of the powerful Inter-Services...

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan appointed a new head of intelligence on Friday, injecting some uncertainty in America's dealings with an agency crucial to its hopes of negotiating a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban and keeping pressure on Al Qaeda. Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam replaced Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who had been in the post since 2008 and was due to retire on March 18th. Islam, the scion of a military family who is currently army commander in the city of Karachi, was considered a likely man for the job. Islam, who was the deputy head of the powerful Inter-Services...

LAHORE, Pakistan - A suicide car bomber targeted buildings housing police and intelligence agency offices in eastern Pakistan this morning, killing at least 30 and wounding more than 100 in one of the deadliest such blasts in the country this year, officials said. The attack, which was followed by gunfire, was the third major strike in the city of Lahore in recent months, and it came amid worries of retaliation from Taliban militants facing a major Pakistani military offensive in the northwest.

After a troubled period in U.S.-Pakistani relations, Pakistani forces have arrested five key al-Qaida suspects at the CIA's request, including a senior operative whose name has not been made public, and also allowed U.S. intelligence officers to question those detainees, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. Pakistan has also stopped demanding the CIA suspend the covert drone strikes that have damaged al-Qaida's militant ranks in Pakistan's tribal areas, officials on both sides say — though the Pakistanis say they have simply put this on the back burner for now. The officials spoke on...

ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani journalist who investigated Al Qaeda’s alleged infiltration of the navy and told a rights activist he had been threatened by the country’s intelligence agencies was found dead yesterday. Police said his body showed signs of torture. Syed Saleem Shahzad’s death underscores the dangers of reporting in Pakistan, which in 2010 was called the deadliest country for journalists. It will also increase scrutiny of Pakistan’s security agencies, already under domestic pressure since the May 2 US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

WASHINGTON - Pakistan's intelligence agency aided insurgents who attacked the US Embassy in Kabul last week, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate yesterday. In comments that were the first to directly link Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, with an assault on the United States, Mullen went further than any other US official in blaming the agency for undermining the US military effort in Afghanistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's intelligence chief accused Pakistan's spy agency of helping Taliban militants carry out attacks in his country, highlighting one of the biggest challenges facing the Obama administration as it prepared yesterday to launch a new strategy for the Afghan conflict. Many Taliban militants fled to Pakistan's border area from Afghanistan following the 2001 US-led invasion, finding a sanctuary that allowed them to mount cross-border attacks that have destabilized Afghanistan and jeopardized...

LAHORE, Pakistan - A suicide squad using guns, grenades, and a van packed with explosives targeted police and Pakistan's intelligence agency yesterday, killing 30 and wounding 250 in an assault seen as revenge for the month-old army campaign against the Taliban in the Swat Valley. The midmorning blast on a crowded street damaged an area nearly as big as a city block, mangling cars, spraying bricks in all directions, and leaving behind a swimming pool-size crater. Most of the dead and injured were civilians.

ISLAMABAD - A battered Al Qaeda suffered another significant blow when Pakistani agents working with the CIA arrested a senior leader believed to have been tasked by Osama bin Laden with targeting American economic interests around the globe, Pakistan announced yesterday. Younis al-Mauritani's arrest, made public six days before the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, also points to improved cooperation between two uneasy antiterror allies after the rancor surrounding bin Laden's killing.

WASHINGTON - For years, the Pakistani spy agency funneled millions of dollars to a Washington nonprofit group in a secret effort to influence Congress and the White House, the Justice Department said yesterday in court documents that are certain to complicate already strained relations between the United States and Pakistan. FBI agents arrested Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, the executive director of the Kashmiri American Council, yesterday and charged him with being an unregistered agent of a foreign government.

WHEN ADMIRAL Mike Mullen retired last week as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, years of frustration toward the Pakistani government came out in full force. It was as if Mullen, who had made a strong relationship with the Pakistani military the foundation of his strategic efforts in the region, couldn't restrain himself any longer. He directed his strongest criticism at the Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), asserting that it colludes with terrorists who attack Americans.

WASHINGTON - Pakistan's intelligence agency aided insurgents who attacked the US Embassy in Kabul last week, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate yesterday. In comments that were the first to directly link Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, with an assault on the United States, Mullen went further than any other US official in blaming the agency for undermining the US military effort in Afghanistan.

ISLAMABAD - A battered Al Qaeda suffered another significant blow when Pakistani agents working with the CIA arrested a senior leader believed to have been tasked by Osama bin Laden with targeting American economic interests around the globe, Pakistan announced yesterday. Younis al-Mauritani's arrest, made public six days before the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, also points to improved cooperation between two uneasy antiterror allies after the rancor surrounding bin Laden's killing.

WASHINGTON - FBI agents hunting for Pakistani spies in the United States last year began tracking Mohammed Tasleem, an attaché in Pakistan's consulate in New York and a clandestine operative of Pakistan's military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence. Tasleem, they found, had been posing as an FBI agent to extract information from Pakistanis in the United States and was issuing threats to keep them from speaking about Pakistan's government. His activities were part of what government officials in...

WASHINGTON - For years, the Pakistani spy agency funneled millions of dollars to a Washington nonprofit group in a secret effort to influence Congress and the White House, the Justice Department said yesterday in court documents that are certain to complicate already strained relations between the United States and Pakistan. FBI agents arrested Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, the executive director of the Kashmiri American Council, yesterday and charged him with being an unregistered agent of a foreign government.

KARACHI, Pakistan — Pakistan’s main intelligence agency issued a rare media statement yesterday to deny it was behind the abduction and killing of a journalist who was investigating terrorism. Speculation that the Inter-Services Intelligence was linked to the slaying of Syed Saleem Shahzad has added to pressure on the agency, already facing international suspicions that elements within it sheltered Osama bin Laden in an army town before he was killed there last month by American commandos.

WHEN ADMIRAL Mike Mullen retired last week as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, years of frustration toward the Pakistani government came out in full force. It was as if Mullen, who had made a strong relationship with the Pakistani military the foundation of his strategic efforts in the region, couldn't restrain himself any longer. He directed his strongest criticism at the Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), asserting that it colludes with terrorists who attack Americans.

Pakistan’s Drift Into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America’s War on Terror , By Hassan Abbas, M. E. Sharpe, 267 pp., paperback, $25.95 Although it is a political history, parts of Hassan Abbas's new book, "Pakistan's Drift Into Extremism," reads like someone whispering family secrets. Instead of the crazy old aunt or the secret adoption, Abbas speaks intimately about the dizzying array of generals deposing presidents and presidents plotting against prime ministers that have whirled through the country's 57-year existence.

ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani journalist who investigated Al Qaeda’s alleged infiltration of the navy and told a rights activist he had been threatened by the country’s intelligence agencies was found dead yesterday. Police said his body showed signs of torture. Syed Saleem Shahzad’s death underscores the dangers of reporting in Pakistan, which in 2010 was called the deadliest country for journalists. It will also increase scrutiny of Pakistan’s security agencies, already under domestic pressure since the May 2 US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan confirmed for the first time yesterday that it has the Afghan Taliban’s number two leader in custody, and officials said he was providing useful intelligence that was being shared with the United States. The confirmation came as the Pakistani government defused a political crisis that threatened to distract from the fight against militancy by backing off on judicial appointments opposed by the Supreme Court. The Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested earlier this month in a joint operation...