User:Mansoor Ijaz/sandbox

RE-DEVELOPMENT PROJECT No.5 -- AHMAD SHUJA PASHA

Lieutenant General (Ret'd) Ahmad Shuja Pasha (احمد شجاع پاشا), HI(M) (born 18 March 1952) was Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's main intelligence agency, from October 2008 until March 2012. He served in Pakistan's Armed Forces for nearly 35 years in various ranks, including combat positions and as director of military operations. In 2011, Time Magazine named Pasha as its 17th most influential person in the world in its annual Time 100 list and Forbes Magazine named him as the 56th most powerful individual in the world in its annual List of the World's Most Powerful People.

During Pasha's tenure as ISI chief, India's largest city, Mumbai, was attacked in November 2008 and Osama bin Laden was assassinated in Abbottabad, Pakistan by U.S. Special Forces on May 2, 2011. Pasha was also summoned as a witness in Pakistan's Memogate investigation and presided over the ISI's alleged involvement in the Raymond Davis affair and the murder of a Pakistani journalist. Upon retirement from official duties in Pakistan, Pasha accepted a position with the government of the United Arab Emirates as a consultant.

Military career
Pasha joined the Pakistan Armed Forces in 1974. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the famed Frontier Force Regiment of the 49th Pakistan Military Academy Long Course. During the 1980s and 1990s, he commanded an infantry battalion and a mechanized infantry brigade of the Pakistan Armed Forces. He also served as Chief Instructor of the Army's Command and Staff College. From 2001 to 2002, General Pasha served as a Contingent and Sector Commander of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone.

Pasha was promoted to the rank of Major General in January 2003, and posted as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 8th Infantry Division in Sialkot. In April 2005, he was appointed Commandant of the Command and Staff College in Quetta. From April 2006 until September 2008, Pasha served as the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) at Army headquarters in Rawalpindi, overseeing all military engagements in Waziristan, Swat and other tribal areas while in the post.

In October 2007, Pasha was asked to serve as Military Adviser to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon but declined due to his DGMO responsibilities. He represented Pakistan as a delegate at Tripartite Commission (Pakistan-Afghanistan-United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) meetings and served as Moon’s adviser on peacekeeping operations prior to his selection as Military Adviser. Pasha was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General prior to his appointment as Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence in September 2008.

Inter-Services Intelligence
Ahmad Shuja Pasha was appointed as the 19th Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence (DG-ISI) on September 29, 2008 by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff. He assumed the position at a time of great turmoil in Pakistan's intelligence gathering and analysis organizations. His predecessor, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, appointed by General Pervez Musharraf in the months after the September 11 attacks, was perceived widely as conducting a dual policies within ISI of supporting certain elements within the Taliban against Afghanistan's coalition-supported civilian government while assisting coalition forces in Pakistan to conduct a war against Al Qaeda-backed terror cells. Many of these operations were carried out by the political wing of ISI, which was disbanded approximately one month after Pasha assumed office.

Allegations of ISI double-dealing under Taj created an environment of distrust with the Bush administration, Pakistan's key ally during the Musharraf regime's final days in office. The newly elected civilian government of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani which took office in early September 2008 tried to gain control over ISI, including the appointment process of its future director generals as well as an attempt to place the agency under the administrative, financial and operational control of Pakistan's Interior Ministry. These efforts were rebuffed by General Kayani, as ISI operations had traditionally remained authoritatively and administratively under Army control.

The appointment of Pasha was broadly interpreted as a concession to Washington's ire over the Musharraf regime's "double-dealing" policies towards Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda operations on Pakistani soil. Prior to his appointment, Pasha was responsible for planning operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan, signaling a reorientation away from the ISI's traditional focus on Kashmir and India. He also was seen as a close ally of General Kayani and enjoyed good relations with the CIA at the outset of his term in office. Pasha's appointment also solidified the inner circle of loyalists close to General Kayani.

Pasha retired as DG-ISI on March 18, 2012 and was succeeded by Lieutenant General Zaheerul Islam as the 20th DG-ISI.

2008 Mumbai attacks
Shortly after Pasha became ISI chief, ten men pledging allegiance to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based terrorist group with known affiliations to ISI during the time Pakistan backed resistance fighters in Kashmir, attacked the Indian city of Mumbai. Over a four day period, 164 people were killed and more than 300 were injured in machine-gun and grenade assaults on two five-star hotels, the city’s largest train station, a Jewish center, a movie theater and a hospital. One of the terrorists, Ajmal Kasab was captured, interrogated, tried (and later executed) for his role in the terrorist plot.

Pakistan's President at the time, Asif Ali Zardari, instructed Pasha to travel to India and share Pakistani intelligence on the assailants after a request from India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in order to diffuse Indian allegations of ISI involvement in the assault. The proposed trip would have been the first instance of an ISI chief traveling from Pakistan to India to offer assistance in the investigation of a terrorist attack. General Kayani intervened and Pasha's trip was canceled under pressure from conservative elements within the Pakistani military.

Intelligence cooperation about the attacks continued between the two countries at Pasha's insistence. In July 2009, Pakistani authorities confirmed that LeT plotted and financed the attacks from its camps in Karachi and Thatta. Planning for the assault had begun nearly one year prior to Pasha's appointment as DG-ISI. Kasab, found guilty by an anti-terrorism court in India, was executed on November 21, 2012 by hanging in Pune, Maharashtra, India. In September 2009, Pasha made another public outreach gesture towards India, attending an Iftar dinner at the India's High Commission in Islamabad hosted by Sharat Sabharwal, then High Commissioner to Pakistan.

Raymond Davis affair
On January 27, 2011, Raymond Allen Davis, an American CIA contractor and former U.S. Army officer working in Pakistan, shot and killed two Pakistani men allegedly brandishing rifles who had pulled up next to his car on a motorcycle on a crowded street in central Lahore. Initially, at a police department interrogation center, Davis claimed he was a consultant for the U.S. Consulate in Lahore and that his actions were in self-defense. A camera found inside Davis’s car reportedly contained photos of Pakistani military installations, confirming ISI suspicions that the CIA had amassed an army of personnel on Pakistani soil to spy on the country's nuclear and military installations - a central issue of contention that Pasha had raised during his visits to the United States to meet with senior CIA officials. Davis was later found to have been extensively spying on LeT, the Pakistani extremist group held responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Davis was arrested and charged with double homicide and illegal possession of a firearm, and held at Kot Lakhpat prison on the industrial fringes of Lahore. In Washington, the Obama administration claimed Davis enjoyed diplomatic immunity as a consulate employee. Pakistani officials said his murky actions and evidence gathered in his car pointed to a clandestine identity that precluded any such claim. A British newspaper would later report that he was acting CIA Station Chief in Pakistan when the incident occurred.

Pasha played a central role in ultimately obtaining Davis's release and diffusing the escalating crisis between Islamabad and Washington. Initially, Pasha attempted to reason with his U.S. counterpart, CIA director Leon Panetta that the matter should be handled between the two agencies quickly and quietly to avoid larger damage to the poisoned U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Panetta refused to accept Davis was a CIA contractor. negotiated a secret deal with U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter

Memogate
Pasha was involved in the Memogate controversy in 2011-2012 in which an American businessman, Mansoor Ijaz, alleged that a senior Pakistani diplomat, former Amb. Husain Haqqani, had asked him to deliver an unsigned memorandum to Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time. The memorandum sought help of the Obama administration in the wake of the Abbottabad raid during which U.S. Special Forces killed Osama bin Laden. It asked the U.S. to help avert a military takeover of the civilian government in Pakistan, as well as assistance in executing a Washington insider takeover of the government's national security team as well as the military apparatus of Pakistan.

On October 10, 2011, the London Financial Times published a Comment article in which the existence of the memorandum was disclosed, arguing that Pakistan's intelligence services were responsible for fueling jihadist insurgency in the country. On October 22, 2011, Pasha met Ijaz at the London Intercontinental hotel. The meeting lasted 4 hours, and started a chain of events that ended in a Supreme Court investigation of the Memorandum's origins, authenticity and purpose. During the London meeting, Pasha was presented with evidence in the form of BlackBerry handset exchanges, written notes and call logs that pointed to Haqqani's involvement allegedly masterminding the scheme.

On April 5, 2012, Pasha agreed to appear before the Judicial Commission constituted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to examine the available evidence in the memorandum affair. He testified that during the meeting in London, he was shown the same evidence as had appeared during the course of the previous three months of hearings and that he believed the evidence to be factual and authentic. He did not waiver in his stance about the purpose, origin or authenticity of the memorandum.

In June 2012, the Judicial Commission released its final conclusions and found that the alleged memorandum was authentic and that former ambassador Husain Haqqani was its "originator and architect". The report said he had in fact sought US support through the memo and wanted to head a new national security team in Pakistan. The report also stated that Haqqani was not loyal to Pakistan as he had left the country, had no material assets in Pakistan and was now living abroad. The Supreme Court, upon hearing the report in session, ordered the former ambassador to appear before the bench. The process of repatriating Haqqani to Pakistan for his appearance in front of the high court continues to the present day. Haqqani continues to the present to deny any involvement in the origins, purpose or authenticity of the Memorandum.

Contentious matters

 * 1) Shahzad Saleem murder
 * 2) Drone strike policies
 * 3) Elimination of Section S
 * 4) Confrontation with Panetta at CIA HQ
 * 5) Lawsuit from Mumbai attack victims' families
 * 6) Reining in excessive VISA issuance from U.S. entrants
 * 7) Involvement with Imran Khan's political rise to power