Pakistani intel chief quits

Benazir Bhutto accused four men of plotting to kill her, and told Pervez Musharraf to have them investigated if she was ever assassinated. One of the four resigned from his position as head of the civilian intelligence service IB. Ijaz Shah has already had his first and last meeting with Pakistan’s new Prime Minister, Mohammadmian Soomro, and will soon vacate his offices:

A Pakistani intelligence chief, regarded as a dangerous enemy by assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, will quit his job before her party comes to power at the head of a new coalition.

Bhutto wrote to President Pervez Musharraf before her assassination on December 27, identifying four members of the civilian-military establishment who should be investigated if she was killed.

Ijaz Shah, head of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), one of Pakistan’s three security services, was believed to be one of the people Bhutto suspected of conspiring against her. …

The government controls the IB, whereas the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence are part of the army-dominated military.

Shah leaves just as the new Parliament comes to power, and that may be no coincidence. Bhutto’s PPP has the most seats and controls the ruling coalition, and her accusations will get serious attention in the new session. Ijaz Shah may not be the only departure, either. With almost enough votes to impeach Musharraf, Parliament will likely demand a housecleaning in the executive, and Musharraf may not have enough juice left to resist it.

Will this hurt the Pakistani effort against al-Qaeda and the Taliban?  Most of that effort goes through military intelligence and the ISI.  The IB has a different mission: to spy on domestic political activities.  Interestingly, Bhutto herself had few scruples about using the IB to undermine and collapse the provincial government of the North West Frontier Province in the mid-1990s during her second term as Prime Minister.  She then used the IB to go after the ISI and military intelligence, which prompted the response from the military that ended her career and eventually forced her into exile.

For Parliament now, the biggest effort will not focus on chasing people out of their positions, but in putting people back into them. Parliament will likely act quickly to restore the judges Musharraf purged from their positions before the elections to ensure his own status as a presidential candidate. The PPP’s coalition will bring legislation within 30 days to accomplish that, and again, Musharraf hardly finds himself in a position to oppose it. The best for which he can hope is to negotiate a settlement that will keep the restored judiciary from ruling his election invalid, and given the mood of the new parliamentarians, that will be a tough sell.

Meanwhile, NATO prepares for the big spring offensive on the border country.  The Taliban may find themselves in a new situation, as the missiles on safe houses this winter have demonstrated, in which the US has less interest in protecting Musharraf’s status.  If so, the Taliban will find themselves continuing on the defensive — and perhaps concentrating less of their effort on Afghanistan and more on Pakistan instead.

Blowback