New ISI chapter

The political crisis in Pakistan, which I wrote about in the last column, lasted three weeks and ended in a tactical victory for the Pakistani Army Chief of Staff, General Kamar Javed Bajwa.

On the evening of October 26, 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan nevertheless signed an order on the appointment of Lieutenant General Nadim Anjum as the head of ISI - Pakistani intelligence, a key agency in the country and abroad.

The approval of Nadim Anjum means the removal of the current most influential director of ISI, Faiz Hamid.

Notification issued by PM office,

Lt General Faiz Hameed shall continue to hold charge as Director General Inter Services Intelligence (DG ISI) until 19th of November 2021 & Lt General Nadeem Ahmed Anjum will take charge on 20th of Nov 2021 # PakistanArmy # Pakistan # DGISI # ISPRpic.twitter.com / 4kIUp4jN4s

- Pakistan Armed Forces 🇵🇰 (@PakistanFauj) October 26, 2021

A Russian reader may ask: "What do we care about Pakistan and the rotation of its intelligence chiefs?"

My answer is that Pakistani intelligence, ISI, is the creator of the Taliban and, therefore, a key player in Afghanistan and the region.

Almost all the ministers of the new Taliban government have been released into the ISI world and are closely monitored and supervised by it.

Therefore, when inviting bearded ministers in turbans to the summits, we must understand that almost all of them are former students of Pakistani madrasahs (in Pashto, the “Talib” is a student).

That is why the dismissal (dismissal) of the head of one of the most powerful intelligence services in Asia is a news feed that deserves the attention of analysts.

But in order.

1. To understand who was removed.

Faiz Hamid has

served as Director of ISI since June 2019. Prior to that, he was in charge of the counterintelligence unit for about five years. His authorship belongs to strong political combinations within Pakistani politics - for example, it is he who is accused of his displacement, criminal proceedings and flight to London by the former very influential Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and it is Faiz who is credited with the victory of the current Prime Minister Imran Khan in the elections in 2018 ... Since 2019, as director of ISI, Faiz Hamid oversaw the Taliban, and the lightning blitzkrieg in August 2021, when the Taliban took Kabul and the whole country almost without a fight, and President Ashraf Ghani fled at the speed of sound - this is partly his personal merit. ...

On September 4, when the Taliban had already seized the country and Pakistan could say #AfghanistanOur with a clear conscience, Faiz Hamid arrived in Kabul accompanied by a high-ranking delegation of eight Pakistani intelligence units with a blueprint for the new government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Faiz Hamid developed a plan to create a new intelligence service and the Afghan army, which he discussed on September 9, 2021 with CIA Director William Burns (for those funny comrades who firmly believed in the "failure and flight of Americans from Afgan").

American weapons, including exemplary armored vehicles and 73 aircraft and helicopters, have been transferred to help the new armed forces of the Afghan Emirate.

For his cooperation with the Americans on Afghanistan, Faiz Hamid has made many influential enemies - from China to Iran.

I wrote in the last column about the harsh cleaning up of the center of resistance in the Panjshir Gorge.

At the same time, ISI conducted a competent PR campaign to promote the "renewed" and reformed Taliban, ordinary Taliban rode swan boats on the lake, and the speakers and Taliban ministers spoke in English that MGIMO graduates, and learned the word "inclusiveness ".

It would seem that for such services to Pakistan, Faiz Hamid should have received state awards and promotion.

But no matter how it is!

Its meteoric rise and international influence have begun to strain the conservative backbone of the army's top generals, which promotes and oversees the Chinese CPEC project in Pakistan.

Therefore, since June 2021, the chief of staff of the army (according to the editor of the Pakistani edition of The Dawn and his sources) began to actively try to remove Faiz Hamid and lobby Nadim Anjum instead.

2. Who was appointed.

Nadim Anjum

 - Lieutenant General, in the army since 1988, before being appointed head of the intelligence service, he led the army corps in Karachi.

Prior to that, General Anjum commanded a brigade in Kurram District, led the Border Corps in Baluchistan, and was commandant of the Quetta Command and Staff College.

ایک کروڑ اورسیز پاکستانیوں کی دعائیں آپ کے ساتھ ہیں آپ پاکستان کے بیٹے ہیں ہم آپ کے ساتھ ہیں pic.twitter.com/WeWqKsRBux

- EUROPEAN PAKISTANI (@EURPK) October 26, 2021

The experience in Baluchistan and Quetta is worth paying special attention to - this is the most difficult region in Pakistan and at the same time perhaps the most important in terms of cooperation with China: it is here that the port of Gwadar, the pearl of the China-Pakistan economic corridor, is located, and it is here in the last year terrorist attacks and deadly attacks on the Chinese have become more frequent.

It is obvious that Bajwa, who oversees the Chinese direction, wants to strengthen personal control in this province, where Chinese activity is concentrated.

Pakistani experts emphasize that the new head of ISI has no intelligence experience.

In short, this is not the highly experienced powerful player Faiz Hamid, who has strengthened the ISI's credibility against the army over the past two years.

The confrontation between the army, represented by the chief of staff, General Kamar Javed Bajwa, and the civilian authorities, represented by Prime Minister Imran Khan (plus the head of the ISI, Faiz Hamid), lasted three weeks, from October 6 to 26, 2021.

Faiz defiantly continued to perform the duties of director, while the chief of staff of the army defiantly appeared in photo reports from military exercises next to his new favorite, General Nadim Anjum, showing the prime minister and current director that he would not back down from his own.

Moreover, Bajwa's appointee quickly identified himself on Google and Wikipedia as the new director of intelligence from October 6, 2021.

And this despite the fact that at this time he was not even approved in office.

On October 12, 2021, Minister of Information Fawad Chaudhry informs the press that “the appointment of a new director will be made in accordance with the legal procedure”, notifies the press that the appointment of the director of the intelligence agency is the prerogative of the prime minister.

A week later, the press is informed of the date: the appointment will be signed by Friday, October 22nd.

For on October 23, on Saturday, Prime Minister Imran Khan is leaving for a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia.

Journalists are waiting for the 22nd until late at night.

The prime minister does not sign the appointment of Nadim Anjum.

Since October 20, protests against inflation in

(the city where the highest headquarters of the army command is located), 

(the city where the chief of staff of the army, General Nadim Anjum, who has been embarrassed by his marathon appointment) and 

grow into thousands streams of people announcing the march to the capital of Islamabad.

On Friday, October 22, Lahore flared up, as if someone had thrown a match into a can of gasoline - crowds of thousands demanded the government's resignation, shouted slogans against Faiz Hamid, with the onset of darkness, protesters began to attack the police stations and the police themselves (three dead officers).

Why did Lahore flare up on Friday?

Because it was there that Prime Minister Imran Khan was on that day, and it was on this day that the "ultimatum" to sign the appointment of the new head of ISI expired.

But what do you think?

It seems that the army generals have forgotten that Imran Khan is a professional athlete who from 1982 to 1992 served as the captain of the Pakistani cricket team and in the same 1992 made Pakistan the world cricket champion - for the only time in history.

(Cricket, by the way, as the legacy of colonial Britain in India and Pakistan, has remained the No. 1 sport, such as football in Brazil).

Because, returning from Lahore to Islamabad late in the evening, Khan did not sign any appointment, and on Saturday morning, as if nothing had happened, he flew to the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Prime Minister @ImranKhanPTI arrives in Madina on 3-day official visit to Saudi Arabia.

The PM was received by Deputy Govenor of Madinah Prince Saud bin Khalid Al-Faisal, and was given a warm reception. # APPNews # PMIKinKSAhttps: //t.co/8NCD2jJWK7pic.twitter.com/TNSnyW6HLL

- APP 🇵🇰 (@appcsocialmedia) October 23, 2021

All three days, the Pakistani media were buzzing - some with delight, some with indignation: the head of the intelligence department, ISI director Faiz Hamid, was present in the Prime Minister's delegation!

It was very interesting to watch the Pakistani prime minister on the Saudi voyage - he took part in religious rituals together with the leadership of Arabia, held meetings and supported the Pakistani cricket team, watching the match on TV - absolutely confidently, relaxed, without showing any nervousness from the withdrawn opposition to the streets of Pakistan and millions of "marches to Islamabad."

Congratulations to the Pakistan Team & esp to Babar Azam who led from the front, as well as to the brilliant performances of Rizwan & Shaheen Afridi.

The nation is proud of you all.

pic.twitter.com/ygoOVTu37l

- Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) October 24, 2021

Not responding to the intimidation of a military coup, which the Pakistani segment of Twitter wrote about, or to the threat of resignation of his government, which was written about by the official media, this is what sports character means.

While the prime minister took the blow of publicity and posed for cameras, leading formal high-status meetings and minutes, the head of the intelligence service never made a public appearance.

But why did he visit Riyadh?

Undoubtedly.

On the day of the arrival of the Pakistani delegation led by the prime minister, none other than the commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Kenneth Mackenzie, was present in Riyadh.

At King Salman Air Base, he met with the head of the Saudi Air Force.

• Twitter

• © @modgovksa

And on October 25, Imran Khan held a public meeting with one of the key players in President Biden's team, Climate Special Envoy John Kerry.

Oh yes, the very event, which was attended by a Pakistani delegation of more than 80 people with the country's most influential intelligence officer, was the Middle East Green Initiative summit and was dedicated to the transition to green energy.

• US President's Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry at a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh

• © Legion-media.ru / Newscom

In a word, at least from October 23 to 25, a team of top-level US military and civilian officials was observed in Riyadh, from the head of CENTCOM to the gray cardinal of the Obama-Biden team.

We dare to assume that a strategy was being worked out on Afghanistan and Pakistan itself, torn today by the interests of the United States and China and the war between the respective power groups, which we are witnessing in attempts to remove Faiz Hamid.

But, given the involvement of the United States in AfPak affairs, I will allow myself to give advice to all the creators of the drama with the removal of the head of ISI, rejoicing in his removal from affairs, including in Afghanistan: rejoice, but moderately.

For the celebration of victory may be premature.

Biographical sources write about Imran Khan as an irreconcilable and extremely unpredictable person.

Yes, in a three-week battle with the army, he saved his face, showing that he is in charge in the country and decisions of the highest level will not pass without his signature.

Nevertheless, he still did not go into a head-on collision amid threats of anti-government protests (but looked at a distance what to expect from his political opponents in the future) and agreed to a transfer imposed by the army.

But there is one very delicate point here.

General Bajwa's term as commander-in-chief expired on November 28, 2019.

In August 2019, Prime Minister Imran Khan himself extended his term for another three years (and on November 26 of the same year, the Pakistani Supreme Court suspended his decision).

Then the "Bajwa case" was sent to parliament for the adoption of legislative acts in order to regulate the reappointment and extension of the term of office of the heads of the special services and other state structures.

It is possible that the political drama with the appointment of the head of the ISI and the precedent created by this will also be sent to parliament to create legislation that clearly prescribes the law on the resignation, dismissal and appointment of the head of the country's intelligence department.

In any event, General Bajwa's term as Army Chief of Staff expires in November 2022.

And the government of Imran Khan, if it manages to sort out all internal crises and solve the most difficult economic challenges, has a chance to work through until 2023, new elections and a new head of the army.

The same visit to Saudi Arabia provides emergency support to the prime minister during the days of the crisis: the Saudi prince bin Salman provided a $ 3 billion deposit to the central bank of Pakistan to stop inflation and the fall of the national currency, as well as $ 1.2 billion to resolve the oil crisis.

Appreciating Saudi Arabia's continuous assistance in testing times, PM @ImranKhanPTI shows his gratitude to Prince Mohammad bin Salman for supporting Pakistan with $ 3 bn as deposit in Pakistan's central bank (@StateBank_Pak) & financing refined petroleum product with $ 1.2 bn🇵🇰🤝🇸🇦 pic .twitter.com / 5XRc1vhFhb

- Prime Minister's Office, Pakistan (@PakPMO) October 27, 2021

On October 26, 2021, on his first working day upon returning to Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan met with General Bajwa, held a telephone conversation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, sent his Foreign Minister Mahmoud Kureishi to Tehran and signed a decree appointing a new head of ISI ...

PM Khan telephones President Xi;

lauds CPC's endeavors in tackling poverty, COVID-19, and climate change @ PakPMO @ zlj517 https://t.co/9ZyFTGEGRQ

- CPEC Official (@CPEC_Official) October 26, 2021

Both the Chinese and Iranians on this day were no coincidence.

Iran's FM @Amirabdolahian welcomed his visiting Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi who paid a visit to Tehran to attend the meeting of foreign ministers of Afghanistan's neighboring countries.

pic.twitter.com/NSGUzowgrD

- Tehran Times (@ TehranTimes79) October 26, 2021

Both countries are very worried about Afghanistan: the Chinese are concerned about Faiz Hamid's close cooperation with the United States and the CIA, the Iranians are concerned that there are no Shiites in the Taliban government (all Shiite, that is Iranian, candidates were removed by the ISI head, and even the Sunni Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, on whom Tehran had pinned its last hopes on, was relegated to the level of deputy prime minister).

Moreover, I personally do not exclude that the removal of Faiz Hamid was an ultimatum both from China (as a condition for the continuation of CPEC financing and financial injections into Afghanistan) and from Iran, which wants to participate in the section of the Afghan pie and is trading right now. with Washington on the nuclear deal.

We look at what is happening simultaneously: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Doha meets with the same Abdul Ghani Baradar (a compromise to Iran) and calls for the lifting of sanctions from the Taliban.

On the same evening on October 26, 2021, after a month's hitch, Khamenei's relative and confidant in the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Ali Bagheri Kani, flew to Brussels to resume negotiations on the nuclear deal.

Ali Bagheri Kani, by the way, is a black mark for General Faiz.

His last visit to Islamabad on October 5, 2021 fell on the day of the Bajwa meeting at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi with the commanders of the regional corps, as well as the heads of the special services, where it was first announced in a closed circle about the displacement of Faiz Hamid.

In conclusion (although the opposition did not cancel the protest march to Islamabad and the Minister of the Interior has already entered into negotiations with it), I will note: until November 19, 2021, the director of ISI is still Faiz Hamid.

And as one Pakistani analyst wrote ironically: “Faiz Hamid has exactly 25 days to solve the 42-year-old problems of the Taliban.

(Or organize something interesting.) And then go into the shadows - to the army headquarters in Peshawar, the Pashtun capital of Pakistan, where Bajwa had exiled him.

Therefore, the Pakistani army generals, lobbying for partnership with China and cooperation with Khamenei, will celebrate their victory today: a strong player has been squeezed out of Afghanistan, holding the threads of the Taliban muppet show.

But, it seems to us, this is not the end of the game at all.

Therefore, I wish the hero of this column to return with a shield, and not on a shield.

* "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.