Speculations: Military says ISI chief not quitting job

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan military categorically denied US media reports that Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), may step down over the intelligence agency’s failure to track down slain al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

A US news website ‘Daily Beast’ claimed – quoting unnamed Pakistani officials – that the director-general ISI may quit, as the government frantically searches for a scapegoat for the Bin Laden debacle.

“It is absolutely baseless. The news is without an iota of truth,” said ISPR Director-General Athar Abbas.

However, security officials said that the ISI chief was abroad on a trip to a ‘friendly state’ to discuss the fallout of the Abbottabad operation.

They did not specify.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2011.