Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
WASHINGTON – Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani has selected Lt. Gen. Zahir-ul-Islam as the new head of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence, or ISI, directorate, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
His appointment is supposed to smooth relations between the ISI and the civilian leadership but also placate the United States.
Zahir-ul-Islam has the backing of Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, chief of the Army staff who has strong Islamist ties and opposes the U.S. drone program. He also made the decision to cut off vital supply routes through Pakistan’s Khyber Pass after the accidental U.S. killing of 24 Pakistani army personnel along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Zahir-ul-Islam succeeds Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha who just retired but managed to help create the animosity that exists today between the U.S. and Pakistan. He is known to have had strong ties to the terrorist proxies that the ISI had created, such as the Afghan Taliban and the violently anti-American Haqqani network.
Zahir-ul-Islam hasn’t had much experience with the U.S. and sources say that the U.S. didn’t oppose his selection. However, he is close to Kayani.
Sources also say that he was the deputy chief of the ISI when the ISI-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the ISI helped create, attacked various hotels and hospitals in Mumbai, India, in November 2008.
These sources say that as the deputy ISI chief, he was in a position to call off the terrorist attack, but didn’t. More than 160 people were killed and some 300 were wounded.
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