Disgraced ISI chief, Hamid Gul, who led Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency as it funneled US and Saudi cash and weapons to Afghan jihadis fighting against the Soviets and later publicly supported Islamic militants, died last Saturday without honour and human dignity.
Mr. Gul’s tenure at the ISI and his outspoken backing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other extremists highlighted the murky loyalties at play years later when the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and their aftermath tested the US-Pakistani alliance.
Mr. Gul came to be seen as an increasingly out-of-touch braggart later in life, as he appeared on many Pakistani television programs warning of conspiracies and demanding his country militarily confront India, its nuclear-armed neighbor.
Mr. Gul died at the hill resort of Murree near the capital, Islamabad, said his daughter, Uzma. She said Mr. Gul suffered a brain hemorrhage.
Mr. Gul served in the army and fought in two wars against India. He viewed India with suspicion for the rest of his life, claiming it wanted to seize Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Many believe he helped shape Pakistan’s policy of funding Islamic militant groups to attack India’s interests in the disputed Kashmir region.
Mr. Gul became the chief of the ISI in 1987, at a time when the United States and Saudi Arabia were using the spy agency to funnel billions of dollars to militants fighting the Soviets during their occupation of neighboring Afghanistan.
Those militants later became the backbone of the Taliban and included a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden.
The government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto forced Mr. Gul out in 1989. He later acknowledged having forged an alliance of Islamist political parties to challenge Bhutto in the 1988 elections that brought her to power.
Despite being stripped of his office, Mr. Gul remained influential. Though unnamed in the Sept. 11 commission report, US officials at the time said they suspected that Mr. Gul tipped bin Laden off to a failed 1998 cruise missile attack targeting him in Afghanistan. The operation came in response to Al Qaeda attacks on embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. The officials said he contacted Taliban leaders and assured them that he would provide three or four hours of warning before any US missile launch.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Gul became an outspoken critic of the United States while cheering the Taliban in public and media appearances. There were allegations, however, that Mr. Gul had a more hands-on approach. US intelligence reports later released by WikiLeaks allege he dispatched three men in December 2006 to carry out attacks in Afghanistan’s capital.
When US special forces killed bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, Mr. Gul helped spread a rumor that US forces killed the Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan and brought his body to Pakistan to humiliate the country.
In conspiracy-minded Pakistan, many believed him. As the last line of his online autobiography reads: People wait to listen to his direction before forming their own opinions.
Source from India Defence News.
