[incarcerated]

It is very difficult to make out who within the ISI is aiding Islamist militants of various shades. Given the attacks within the country, some ISI elements are definitely collaborating with the jihadists. It is also likely that some of these elements are pressing ahead with private foreign and policy objectives. And then there is the possibility that within the ISI, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.

Other than some sketchy open-source material, information on the structure of the ISI is hard to come by. What is known is that beneath the director-general (who is of lieutenant-general rank) there are six major generals, who are also referred to as director-generals of their respective sub-units. Dozens of brigadiers report to these six two-stars, who in turn work with more than a hundred colonels who run various field/regional offices, along with thousands of junior officers. Though it is an army-dominated military organization, some 40 percent of the ISI’s employees are civilians who are either retired from active military service or came through the civil service selection process. There are also many retired employees who continue to work with the directorate as contractors and consultants.

The ISI does have different departments that handle the various issues the service deals with, such as the Afghan and Kashmir cells. In addition to the bureaus involved in counterintelligence, signal intelligence and information technology, the ISI maintains an internal security branch which contains the political wing dealing with domestic political issues. The term “Islami wing,” a reference to those elements who are either Islamist or pro-Islamist, has also become popularized in the local discourse.

Where It Goes From Here

The ISI evolved fairly rapidly, through domestic and regional crises and threats, into a much more powerful and dominant force in Pakistan, dealing with foreign intelligence, domestic security threats, military and political issues. Over time, it also took on a life of its own as a center of power in Pakistan — something that succeeding governments or regimes could not necessarily control but tried to manage. Attempts to rein in the ISI’s power were met with resistance and mixed success and were put aside as new crises arose.
As the ISI evolved, it became the chief conduit for relations with Islamist militants — in part to mitigate their domestic impact, but more to wield or manipulate them as foreign policy tools. These relations with jihadists, though, at times became the end rather than the means, as the ISI monolith continued along with minimal competent oversight or transparency.

Sometimes ISI/Islamist actions ran counter to state intent (as in the trigger for Kargil, for example) and exacerbated political crises and rivalries among various centers of power. At other times, the relationship was seen as useful (support for the Taliban shored up Pakistan’s buffer on its western border) but later detrimental (support for the Taliban after 9/11). But the compartmentalized and opaque relations that had developed over time meant the ISI was not necessarily acting as a single unified entity, and operations and relations could and did contradict government policy and intent — even sometimes the intent of the ISI.

The current U.S.-Pakistani crisis is now shining a spotlight on the problems associated with trying to control an ISI that has, in many ways, taken on a life of its own — reaching into domestic and international politics, running its own operations and apparently blurring the lines between the idea of Islamists as a means to an end and Islamism as an end in itself.

Civilian rule in Pakistan has never taken root, and at the present time even the country’s military establishment is having a hard time dealing with a rapidly deteriorating crisis of governance. That said, the military remains the only institution with the power to create change — but it can only do so if the country’s intelligence system is overhauled. Even though it started out as a reluctant ally of Washington in the U.S.-jihadist war, Pakistan is now locked in its own existential struggle against religious extremism and terrorism, a struggle which simply cannot be won without an intelligence service free of jihadist links.

In the here and now, the ISI has lost control, which is what is needed for the Pakistani state to re-establish its waning writ. The state cannot do this without the help of a robust intelligence agency. Among systemic inertia, the size of the directorate and the fear of losing control over the state and/or national interest, the military’s top brass are unable or unwilling to engage in a drastic overhaul of the organization.

The Pakistani state is facing unprecedented internal political and security threats to its integrity which, if not mitigated soon, could lead to its implosion. Under these conditions, cleaning up an intelligence agency as powerful as the ISI can become a very messy affair, to say the least. That said, the Pakistanis cannot hope to regain control of their security situation and address international concerns unless they solve the problems plaguing the ISI.