Lt Gen Faiz Hameed: The Life of Spies is Only to Know, and Not Be Known

File photo of Lt Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed (right) while he was the country’s spymaster with then prime minister Imran Khan.

(Photo: Aaj English TV)

Chakwal District in Pakistan typifies the Punjabi heartland of soldiering, since antiquity. Its famous (and infamous) sons included the first subcontinental recipient of the highest gallantry award in the British Raj days — the Victoria Cross — for Khudadad Khan, the first Pakistani designated to take over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistani Army (but died in an air crash) in Maj Gen Iftikhar Mohammad Khan, the broody dictator General Yahya Khan, and countless others who wore the uniform.

On the Indian side, the village Gah in Chakwal is also the birthplace of former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

Today, the Pakistani soldiering fount of Chakwal is in question for the unbecoming conduct of yet another son — Lt Gen Faiz Hameed — who shot to shadowy fame as the flamboyant spymaster as the DG-ISI (Director General of Inter-Services-Intelligence).  

The chilling picture of the Pakistani general in the chaotic rubble of Kabul, just after the Americans had abandoned and the Taliban hordes had run over, shocked the world. Sipping tea in fine china whilst dressed in grey flannels, a sharp white shirt, and an ironed blue blazer, was a stunning picture of contrast (fawned over by the ragtag Taliban) and the accompanying confidence of an inside job, well done!

The special treatment of the then DG-ISI on the fall of Kabul suggested so many things, the foremost being the formal confirmation of the worst-kept secret of the ISI hand in the storming of Kabul. If the famed duplicitousness of the Pakistan ‘establishment’ (military) needed a picture, it was this.

Cutting DG-ISIs Down to Size

By itself, the confirmation of Pakistani machinations in support of the Taliban wasn’t particularly revealing or shocking, but the cavalier and brazen attitude of the DG-ISI was. But even this wasn’t the real rocker, as the real bolt was that perhaps even the then Pakistani Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Bajwa, may not have sanctioned this trip of Lt Gen Faiz Hameed. Murmurs of Lt Gen Hameed’s clear overreach could have only been sanctioned from one quarter, if not from the Army Chief — directly by the vainglorious Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was in the midst of upstaging the Pakistani ‘establishment’ led by General Bajwa.

It seems that Lt Gen Faiz Hameed was emboldened by ‘Taliban Khan’ (as Imran Khan was labelled for his murky ideological and puritanical dalliances) and he thought that they the political masters and the ISI, could act without the Pakistani ‘establishment’ led by Qamar Bajwa. 

All this harks back to the times when the DG-ISI almost ran parallel institutions and needed to be cut to size by its own whenever the occupant of the ‘Army House’ (the Army chief) thought that the former was getting more independent, politicised, and indulging in extracurricular activities. The converse was also true. Often the more secure and confident prime ministers tended to remove DG-ISIs when they thought that they were not doing their personal and partisan bidding.

The fact that the ISI is constitutionally wired to report to the civilian government (though manned by the Pakistani military) and its headquarters are not within the garrison of the Pakistani Army’s General Head Quarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi but in the political capital of Islamabad, affords it certain secrecy and disconnection from the parent ‘establishment’ and a plausible sense of ‘extra constitutionality’ owing to its role and expectations. 

The joke goes, that the Pakistani ‘establishment’ can be called an army with a nation, whereas the ISI can sometimes be a state within a state. Therefore, it often needed reining in, either by the more senior generals in the Rawalpindi GHQ (read, Army chief) or by the civilian prime minister.    

Overreach and 'Sorting Out'

The man to start the rot of unprofessional overreach with the DG-ISI post started in earnest with Maj Gen Ghulam Jilani Khan, who played a dark role in Operation Fair Play led by General Zia-ul-Haq to oust and ultimately hang Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Another DG-ISI, Lt Gen Akhtar Abdur Rahman, played a nefarious role in creating and directing the Afghan Mujihedeens in the Afghan-Soviet war and was touted as the second most powerful man in Pakistan, after Zia. But, he was to live by the sword and die by the same, as he died in the mysterious air crash that also accounted for General Zia.

His successor, the infamous and overambitious DG-ISI Lt Gen Hamid Gul was to direct his attention towards the spurring insurgency in Kashmir (he was cut to size by PM Benazir Bhutto). Later, yet another DG-ISI, Lt Gen Shamsur Rahman Kallu, was to deceive his political master Benazir, to whom he owed his post, by double-crossing her in the horse-trading drama called Operation Midnight Jackals. His successor as DG-ISI, Lt Gen Durrani, had all national political parties dancing to his tune till he too was ‘sorted out’.  

But after the last formal military coup by General Pervez Musharaf, the post of the DG-ISI was somewhat restrained and only loyalists of the Army chief or of the political masters made it to that post. By and large, they remained in the shadows, as warranted by their realm and occupational requirements. They certainly dabbled in internal politics and cross-border activities beyond their mandated remit, but only after the necessary clearance from the Army House.

The excesses and controversies, if any, were on account of flexing the positional power towards personal aggrandisements, amoral lifestyles (for example, Lt Gen Zaheer-ul-Islam’s licentiousness) or for controlling political opposition on behalf of the Army House (for example, Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha was appointed despite opposition from PM Yousaf Raza Gillani by the sparring Army Chief General Pervez Kayani). 

Drama Around Lt Gen Faiz Hameed

Perhaps Lt Gen Faiz Hameed fancied the role of DG-ISI as an opportunity to play the role of ‘kingmaker’ or become the second most important man in Pakistan, that too a bit too seriously for the liking of his seniors in the parent ‘establishment’. By cosying up to Prime Minister Imran Khan when he was in the middle of a battle of wits with the military, tantamount to crossing the redline, Hameed was unceremoniously removed from his post.

Imran Khan sat long on his successor's file and was pressured to accept the incumbent Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum, reluctantly. Later, Imran was bumped out of power and with that tectonic shift, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed quietly (coincidentally and tellingly) put in his papers for a premature retirement. He thought it was best to go out like a ship at night. 

But his problems didn’t end with that as the current Army Chief Asim Munir (also one-time DG-ISI who was caught in a crossfire with Imran Khan and suddenly removed) is still fighting a bitter war with Imran Khan that remains unsettled. An old corruption case (nothing unusual in the Pakistani narrative, and certainly not for former DG-ISIs) pertaining to Lt Gen Faiz Hameed resurfaced serendipitously as the Pakistani ‘establishment’ reacted with rare alacrity to make a court martial enquiry.

All this drama is perhaps less to disgrace an already removed DG-ISI and more to dig dirt and discredit the bigger nemesis of the moment — Imran Khan. If Lt Gen Faiz Hameed is indeed convicted (as is most likely), not only does Asim Munir score a huge moral point against Imran Khan and his ‘system’, but it also sends a terse message to his own Army’s rank and file to toe the line.

It’s a godsend and win-win opportunity for Asim Munir, and the overambitious and presumably megalomaniac Lt Gen Faiz Hameed is paying the price for forgetting the timeless adage that the life of spies is only to know, and not be known.         

(The author is a Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)