Lt-Gen Rizwan Akhtar to take reins of ISI today

Before being appointed as DG ISI, Army Chief General Raheel Sharif promoted him to rank of Lieutenant-General

ISLAMABAD:

Lieutenant-General Rizwan Akhtar will formally walk into the highly fortified headquarters of Pakistan’s premier spy agency as its chief today (Saturday).

He will take charge from Lt-General Zaheerul Islam as the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), considered by many to be both the most powerful and the most challenging position in the country. Lt-Gen Islam retired on Friday after reaching the age of superannuation.

Rizwan, who is the 21st DG ISI, was named for the coveted post in September. Before being appointed as DG ISI, Army Chief General Raheel Sharif promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant-General.

Rizwan was commissioned in the Army in Frontier Force Regiment in September 1982. According to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), he is a graduate of Command and Staff College Quetta and the National Defence University (NDU) Islamabad. He also went to the United States for a war course. Rizwan has commanded an infantry brigade and division in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and also served as DG Rangers Sindh.

The new spymaster is viewed as a ‘professional soldier and apolitical’. But his real test begins now, given the controversies associated with his two immediate predecessors – Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha and Lt-Gen Zaheerul Islam.

While Pasha was accused of trying to destabilise the Pakistan Peoples Party government through the ‘Memogate’ scandal, Islam was linked by certain quarters with anti-government movements led by Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri. Against this backdrop, the new ISI chief’s most immediate challenge is to keep his agency away from all such political controversies.

“ISI has remained in the headlines in recent years but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons,” a retired two-star general, who also served in the ISI, said while talking to The Express Tribune.  “I expect the new ISI chief to keep a low profile and strictly focus on professional matters,” added the general, who wished not to be identified, because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The new ISI chief also has to deal with multiple issues, including both internal and external.

“Internally, the main challenge is militancy given the fact that ISI has a crucial role in terms of intelligence gathering,” said defence analyst Lt-Gen (retd) Talat Masood. “On the external front, Afghanistan and India no doubt will take centre stage,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2014.