FORMER spymaster retired Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed’s arrest and the news that he may be facing a field general court martial for activities prejudicial to the military’s rules and regulations have understandably generated immense excitement in the media.

Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed occupied two of the most powerful positions in the country’s intelligence establishment after he was handpicked by the then COAS Gen Qamar Bajwa as DGC (the ‘C’ stands for counter-intelligence). It is reputedly the second-most important position in the ISI.

In view of the interest of the institution in Pakistani politics on what it says are national security grounds, the primary role of the position-holder is to be the guardian of the agency’s interests — with contending entities in the power structure such as elected governments and even the judiciary.

Gen Bajwa moved him from GOC Pano Akil to the DGC position with the task of delivering the exit of the then prime minister and his PML-N and ensuring ‘positive’ results in the 2018 elections. He delivered in no uncertain terms. In fact, insiders say that the seat count of the various parties he mentioned in institutional meetings ahead of the election was more or less what emerged after the polls.

He forgot that his predecessors had hardly been on a solo flight.

While he served as chief of staff to Bajwa, and earned his confidence, when the latter was commanding a corps, he was also close to retired Lt-Gen Bilal Akbar who was a key member of the Bajwa team as CGS and one of the main initiators of the move against the PML-N government.

It isn’t as if the phenomenon is new or has ended. It continues unabated. From the days of Ayub Khan to prime minister Z.A. Bhutto and beyond, all military and civilian leaders have continued to rely on the office-holder to deliver whatever is asked of them without question.

The DGC’s ability to ‘deliver’ is a function of his immense power, which is immune to outside scrutiny. Some civilian leaders have been pretty open about how they used the office-holder to ensure their own members of parliament and the opposition remained in check.

Anyone with even a rudimentary interest in our history and politics will remember names such as Brig Imtiaz Ahmad in the Zia days who was then the boss of IS (internal security) in the ISI. He pursued the dictator’s opponents with vigour and also his own commercial interests, earning great infamy during Operation Midnight Jackal, which was aimed at the ouster of the then prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Former DG ISI, the late Lt-Gen Hamid Gul was open in saying he was instrumental in the formation of the IJI alliance created ahead of the 1988 elections to stop the march of Benazir Bhutto to power as the military was suspicious of her motives and intentions. Later attempts to do the same are chronicled in the late Air Marshal Asghar Khan’s case before the Supreme Court.

Other known DGCs include retired Maj-Gen Ehtasham Zamir who birthed the Q League and found enough treasonous PPP MNAs to switch sides, form PPP Patriots and enable government formation. His interview is on record detailing how he managed to put in place a coalition sympathetic, in fact totally subservient, to his boss Gen Pervez Musharraf.

With the electronic media booming during Musharraf’s years in power and the military ruler taking on the judiciary in a move that would eventually trigger his downfall, all directors of news at private TV channels dreaded getting a call from the then DGC Maj-Gen Nusrat Naeem.

Relatively more recently, Pakistanis became familiar with another DGC who served his boss DG ISI Lt-Gen Shuja Pasha so well that he succeeded him in the top job. Retired Lt-Gen Zaheerul Islam followed in Pasha’s footsteps and shared his commitment to rooting out what they saw as corrupt politicians.

When the move against the then prime minister started, the DGI was Lt-Gen Naveed Mukhtar, who was related by marriage to Nawaz Sharif, and was chosen by the latter to head the agency possibly on account of his sterling track record as DG CT (counterterrorism).

Some sources say that the DGI was informed by Gen Bajwa of the decision to move Maj-Gen Faiz Hameed as DGC and was also told the latter would have complete freedom of action and report to the chief rather than the DGI. As DGC, he delivered in no uncertain terms, in the process earning the trust of the new prime minister. Promoted to three-star, he was appointed DGI.

He may have been an effective DGC and later DGI but he rode roughshod over one and all including respected figures in the media and went after media groups he saw as reluctant to play ball in the ouster of the PML-N government and ensuring a smooth, criticism-free passage of its replacement. It didn’t matter to him that the media group was not PML-N-leaning but merely doing its duty as an independent voice. He tried his best to destroy the media group.

This unbridled power clearly got to his head and he proceeded to rehire on contract retired officers personally loyal to him. He forgot that his predecessors had hardly been on a solo flight. They had always represented institutional interests. When he lost out in the race for the position of army chief following the naming of the senior-most three-star, Gen Asim Munir, to the top slot, he never recovered from what he saw as a setback.

Given the institution’s disdain for what it sees as ‘disloyalty’, Faiz Hameed is reported to have acted ‘irrationally’ since his retirement in trying to undermine the current leadership and is now in the dock reportedly facing serious charges, as are some of his intel minions. The question is: will this reality check make him reflect on his follies or prove a motivation for him to throw others under the bus to get off the hook himself or secure a better deal?

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2024