Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar has said the term of the head of Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had been extended to preserve “continuity” of policy at a time the country faces increasing militant attacks.
This is the first time a Pakistani official has publicly commented on the extension of Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum, director general of the ISI, who was due to retire late this month. The military has not yet announced Anjum’s extension formally but there has been weeks-long speculation in Pakistani media that it had been granted.
The DG ISI is one of the most important positions in Pakistan, operating at the intersection of national politics and foreign relations. The agency oversees efforts to combat militants and is also feared by civilian politicians for its role in past military coups and managing political affairs.
The last DG ISI to get an extension was Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, whose tenure coincided with major anti-militant offensives in the country’s northwest.
The extension for Anjum also comes during a major uptick in militancy by groups such as Daesh, as well as Pakistan’s own indigenous Taliban movement, the TTP, which Islamabad says has been emboldened by the coming to power of the Afghan Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
“Try to understand the point on continuity [of policy]. Any system prefers and supports the idea of continuity,” Kakar told Arab News in an interview this week, when asked why Anjum was given an extension.
“You want to have a continuation of the process, and for you the continuation of that process is important so that idea or practice or brand gets entrenched,” the PM added, without disclosing specific details of the policies the government and military wanted Anjum to continue to implement.
“So, in that context at times in many institutions, you do feel, or the political dispensation feels, that some individual has to continue for any security benefit or otherwise, and they [the state] have got the discretion to do that [grant extension]. There’s nothing unusual and abnormal about it.”
Anjum was appointed DG ISI on November 20, 2022. Little over a week later, the TTP said it would no longer abide by a months-long cease-fire with the Pakistani government, urging its fighters to resume attacks against a continuous military campaign against them. Since then, the group has launched attacks on police compounds, security convoys and other military and civilian targets.
A report published by the Islamabad-based independent Center for Research and Security Studies in September said at least 700 security officials and militants had been killed in Pakistan in the first nine months of the year. Scores more have been killed since in attacks across the country.
And as campaigning steps up for general elections due in January, bombings across Pakistan have also stoked fears of violence at political rallies that can draw tens of thousands of people in the country of over 230 million.
Kakar told Arab News he did not want to link the rise in militancy to a possible delay in the election.
“They [militants] keep on changing their tactics, we have to respond accordingly,” the PM said. “So that’s why I’m saying that I’m not linking it [rise in attacks] or our government is not linking it with the electoral process.”
