Pakistan must tame its intelligence service

Worried about the Russians to their north and the Indians to the south, the generals who have ruled Pakistan for most of its 60 years of independence fashioned a powerful tool: Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) became one of the world's most powerful spy services.

Now, decades later, Pakistan's new government is trying to rein in the ISI. This effort might not succeed, but the world should hope it does. Among other vital issues, Canadians have a stake in ISI's not-so-secret support for Afghanistan's Taliban guerrillas. ISI patronage of the Taliban is killing Canadian and allied soldiers and ordinary Afghans

Military influence stretches deep into Pakistan's business sector, as into politics. If the armed forces operate in some ways as a parallel government, then within the military, ISI in turn sometimes seems like a law unto itself, supporting Islamic terrorism in Kashmir and India, among other activities. And ISI worked with the U.S. to build up the Taliban against Soviet domination of Afghanistan.

When the U.S. abruptly changed its view of the Taliban, after Sept. 11, 2001, so did Pakistan, officially. Although President Pervez Musharraf made some efforts to be a good ally, ISI kept right on aiding the Taliban. Today Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas shelter and nourish Taliban terror in Afghanistan.

That's the context in which Yousaf Raza Gilani, prime minister in Pakistan's new elected government, announced last week that the ISI would now report to the interior ministry, not the armed forces. It was no coincidence that the move came just before Gilani flew off to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush, whose administration has grown steadily more vocal about the ISI.

Pakistan's military high command and Musharraf, now nominally a civilian, did not welcome the change, and the government soon rescinded the announcement, apparently after ominous pressure from the armed forces. The struggle continues.