Has Pakistan Tamed its Spies?

This is how bad it was for terrorist hunters before Sept. 11: after weeks of dangerous surveillance work along the Afghan border, Egyptian investigators visiting Pakistan last summer with the permission of that country's government finally tracked down their quarry, a close associate of Osama bin Laden named Ahmad Khadr, who was wanted in connection with the 1995 bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad that killed 15 people. The Egyptians surrounded the safe house in the Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar where Khadr, an Egyptian Canadian, was hiding. All that remained was to notify General Mehmood Ahmed, then Pakistan's chief spymaster, so that his spooks could burst in and arrest Khadr. Ahmed promised swift action.

It was swift--but not in the way the Egyptians expected. That night the Pakistani security forces never turned up. Instead a car with diplomatic plates roared up to the Peshawar house. As the Egyptians watched, a gang of Taliban spilled out, grabbed Khadr and then drove him over the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan, beyond the Egyptians' reach. The Pakistani spy agency, known as Inter-Services Intelligence, had betrayed the Egyptians. "The next day the ISI called up and said, 'So sorry, the man gave us the slip,'" a diplomat recalls. "It was a lie."

Since Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf threw in his lot with the U.S. after Sept. 11, he has been wrestling to gain control over the 10,000-strong ISI, a group of soldiers, field agents, sneaks and tens of thousands of additional informers so formidable and independent its critics call it "a kingdom within a state." The stakes for Musharraf and the U.S. are high. Transforming the organization from one that has abetted Islamic militancy to one that combats it is fundamental to both Washington and Islamabad as they struggle to impose moderation on a radicalized part of the world. The preliminary signs are that Musharraf, despite many obstacles, may actually be succeeding in taming the ISI.

"We're quite pleased with the cooperation we've got from them," says a U.S. official in Washington. A Western diplomat in Islamabad says, "There's grudging compliance. They're saluting Musharraf and obeying him."

For the ISI to sign on to Washington's war against terrorism is quite a switch. Until Sept. 11, the organization was suspected of propping up the Taliban and by extension its al-Qaeda guests in Afghanistan, although Pakistan hotly denies this. As Washington mops up after the war in Afghanistan, pursuing the surviving remnants of bin Laden's terrorist web, the ISI's cooperation is particularly critical. Western intelligence sources in Islamabad say hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives are still hiding out in Pakistan. Last week, according to tribal elders, some 40 U.S. commandos set up base in the Pakistani town of Miramshah, following reports that bin Laden might be holed up nearby in either north Waziristan or the Tirah valley. Officially, Pakistan's government, sensitive to popular anti-American sentiment, denies that U.S. special forces crossed into its tribal borderlands. Whether or not U.S. troops are on the ground, Washington must depend, at least in part, on Pakistani intelligence to flush out remaining fugitives. The working deal is this: the American hunters provide electronic surveillance and whopping rewards for information; the ISI supplies the human intel, the spies and informants who actually know who is where.