The Inter-Services Intelligence (Urdu: بین الخدماتی استخبارات, romanized: bain-al-xidmātī istixbārāt) is the foreign intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for counterintelligence, espionage and conducting covert operations around the world. The main objective of the ISI is to covertly collect & analyze intelligence from overseas that is deemed relevant to Pakistan's national security and interests. The ISI reports to its agency executive which is the Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence. It is primarily focused on providing foreign intelligence to the Government of Pakistan and the Pakistan Armed Forces. It is part of the Pakistan Intelligence Community.
The ISI primarily consists of both serving military and civilian intelligence officers drawn on secondment from the three intelligence services of the Pakistan Armed Forces: the MI, NI, and AI and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD).
Since 1971, it has been formally headed by a serving three-star general of the Pakistan Army, who is appointed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan in consultation with the Chief of Army Staff, who recommends three officers for the position. As of 30 September 2024, the ISI is headed by Lt. Gen. Asim Malik. The Director-General reports directly to both the Prime Minister and the Chief of Army Staff.
Relatively unknown outside of Pakistan since its inception, the agency gained global recognition and fame in the 1980s when it backed the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War in the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Over the course of the conflict, the ISI worked in close coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and the Secret Intelligence Service of the United Kingdom to run Operation Cyclone, a program to train and fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan with support from China, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim nations.
Following the dissolution of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992 along withthe Soviet Union, the ISI provided strategic support and intelligence to the Taliban against the Northern Alliance during the Afghan Civil War in the 1990s. The ISI has strong links with jihadist groups, particularly in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in their first ever open acknowledgement in 2011 in US Court, said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sponsors and oversees the insurgency in Kashmir by arming separatist militant groups.
