The Indian journalist, known for his combative interviews, said, “They are claiming that I’m anti-Pakistani on a day when my column in the Hindustan Times clearly shows that the one thing I’m not is anti-Pakistani. And in India, I’m considered pro-Pakistani and criticised for it”.
New Delhi: Over a month after his arrest, the Pakistani government claims to have “concrete evidence” of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf spokesperson Raoof Hasan’s alleged “nexus” with India, citing his WhatsApp exchanges with Indian journalist Karan Thapar, who dismisses the accusations as absurd.
Describing the allegations by the Pakistani government as “bonkers”, Thapar told The Wire, “they’ve lost all grip on rationality”.
In a career spanning over four decades, Thapar – a well-known columnist and television anchor – has worked with leading channels in Britain and India such as BBC, CNN-IBN and India Today. Since 2017, he has hosted ‘The Interview’ on The Wire’s YouTube channel in which he has interviewed guests from India, Pakistan, Palestine, Israel, Iran, the US, Britain and elsewhere on a range of news topics.
Though it is common knowledge in Indian political circles that the ruling BJP is wary of Thapar because of his sharp and direct questioning and that government ministers have been told by the party leadership to avoid appearing on his show, the Pakistani government has chosen to portray him as a proxy for the ‘Indian establishment’ in order to bolster its claims that Hasan and the PTI are “running [an] anti-Pakistan campaign on [the] behest of anti-national forces”.
The website of the PakistanMinistry of Information and Broadcasting on Sunday published an unsigned note/article with the title ‘Concrete evidence comes forth about nexus of Raoof Hasan with Indisa’ in which it claimed that “concrete evidence have come forth [sic] about [the] nexus of Raoof Hasan with India, which has exposed the facilitation of PTI founding chairman for fanning anti-state narrative”:
“According to details, foreign and Indian lobby is active to fulfill the anti-state agenda of the PTI founder.
“Following the American Roane Garam [sic], links of secret communication through WhatsApp between PTI Secretary General Raoof Hasan and Indian journalist Karan Thapar have also been revealed.
“The detail shows that Raoof Hasan approached Indian journalist Karan Thapar as party media coordinator on November 19, 2022.
“In the initial WhatsApp message, the Indian journalist inquired from Raoof Hasan about Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s expected interview.
“On 24 November 2022, Karan Thapar also shared his YouTube interview with Rana Banerjee, former Secretary RAW, to Raoof Hasan about Army Chief General Asim Munir.
“In that interview, Karan Thapar had termed Army Chief as more hardliner for India.
“On November 25, 2022, Karan Thapar shared a Pakistani journalist’s interview of General Asim Munir with Raoof Hasan through WhatsApp.
“Responding to that interview, Raoof Hasan described the Pakistani journalist as an unreliable person and shared sensitive information about the Army Chief with Indian journalist Karan Thapar.”
Later in the day, the Pakistani information minister Ataullah Tarar was quoted in the Express-Tribune as stating that “Hasan’s communication with an Indian journalist, known for anti-Pakistan sentiments, has further revealed PTI’s disloyalty to the country”.
After Hasan’s arrest on July 22, the Pakistani interior ministry claimed he was detained because PTI was “involved in anti-state propaganda.” PTI, led by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, had governed Pakistan for nearly four years before losing a no-confidence vote in parliament last year after falling out with the powerful military establishment.
Imran Khan has been in jail for over a year, during which many of his senior party officials have either been imprisoned or resigned from PTI.
Last week, the Pakistani military arrested retired General Faiz Hameed, the former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency and a close ally of Khan, on charges related to a property case.
According to the leaked WhatsApp screenshots, Raoof Hasan had first reached out to Karan Thapar on Nov 19, 2022 to discuss the possibility of an interview with former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
Another screenshot was of Thapar sending a YouTube link of his interview with Rana Banerji, former special secretary, R&AW, about the profile of Gen Asim Munir, who would soon be taking over as Pakistan’s army chief, .
“The following day, Thapar sent another interview concerning the army chief to Hasan, who responded by disparaging the Pakistani journalist involved and shared sensitive information about the army chief with Thapar,” wrote the Express Tribune.
The pro-establishment media reports also highlighted Hasan’s criticism of the Pakistani position on the Ukraine war in February 2023, comparing it negatively to the Indian position.
In another screenshot, a truncated discussion, apparently from March 2023, shows Hasan referring to the arrests made at Imran Khan’s residence. “Pakistan appears ready for a bloody revolution,” Hasan wrote.
The Express Tribune further noted that “reliable sources also confirm” Hasan had recorded an interview with Karan Thapar via Zoom on May 10, 2023. Why “reliable sources” were needed to “confirm” information that a simple Google search would have revealed is not clear, unless the idea was to confuse readers by presenting a publicly broadcast interview as some sort of clandestine exchange: The Wire’s YouTube channel uploaded Thapar’ back-to-back interviews with Hasan and Pakistani journalist, Hamid Mir on May 10.
The same newspaper further claimed that Hasan sent a message to Thapar stating that Pakistan was “passing through an undeclared martial law era” and that “Complete military movement is being observed on Pakistan’s streets and alleys”.
The article went on to assert that the WhatsApp messages “indicate that Raoof Hasan urged Karan Thapar to promote negative narratives about Pakistan’s military.”
“Defence experts have expressed deep concern over Hasan’s reckless WhatsApp communications with Karan Thapar, viewing them as a treasure trove of information for the RAW operatives behind Thapar,” wrote Express Tribune. The website of the Pakistani ministry of information and broadcasting quoted information minister Attaullah Tarar as saying, “Raoof Hasan’s contacts with Indian journalist based on provocative and terrifying messages expose anti-national agenda of PTI.”
Asked whether these leaked messages were authentic, Thapar said, “I don’t keep my WhatsApp messages…. [but] I have no reason to doubt it if I’ve seen the WhatsApp messages correctly”.
He pointed out that he had only minimal interaction with Hasan. “I can’t claim he’s a friend of mine. We’ve only texted on WhatsApp. I don’t think other than the interview I did on Zoom, I’ve ever spoken to him… So, you know, to claim that we are friends or know each other or have a relationship is a vast exaggeration.”
The Indian journalist, known for his combative interviews, said, “They are claiming that I’m anti-Pakistani on a day when my column in the Hindustan Times clearly shows that the one thing I’m not is anti-Pakistani. And in India, I am considered to be pro-Pakistani and criticised for it”.
A critic of the Narendra Modi-led government’s policies, Thapar is perhaps best known among a younger generation of viewers for having so irked Modi with his line of questioning in 2007 that the BJP leader – who was chief minister of Gujarat at the time – abruptly ended the interview.
“I wish someone would inform our beloved Führer that I am anti-Pakistani and pro-him,” Thapar told The Wire. “Maybe then he’ll change his attitude towards me — and come back and finish his interview!”
Thapar clarified that he has used ‘beloved Führer’ as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Indian prime minister in his text messages over the past several years.
“Frankly, the Pakistanis have flipped,” he concluded.
Note: In an earlier version of this story, the year in which Narendra Modi abruptly ended his interview with Karan Thapar was wrongly mentioned as 2002. It was in 2007.
In conversation with Rana Banerji, one of India’s experts on the Pakistan army.
Rana Banerji, one of India’s experts on the Pakistan army, says Asim Munir is likely to be more hardline in his attitude to India than the outgoing Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa but adds that the 2003 ceasefire along the LoC, which was reinforced in early 2021, will be strictly enforced.
Below is the full text of the interview he gave to Karan Thapar about General Munir’s background, his relationship with different politicians, his attitude to India and more.
Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. Earlier today the Pakistan government, headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the name of the country’s new Army Chief. It is Lieutenant General Asim Munir. And so, today we ask: What do we know about General Asim Munir? How will Imran Khan respond to this appointment? And what do we know about General Munir’s attitude to India?
Joining me to answer these questions is the former Special Secretary in Charge of R&AW and the author of a seminal book on the Pakistan Army, The Pakistan Army: Composition, Character and Compulsions, Rana Banerji.
Mr Banerji, let me start with that simple question; what do we know about General Asim Munir, the new Pakistan Army chief? I know that he was Quarter Master General until his announcement today as the new Army chief. I also know that he has earlier served as Director General Military Intelligence and briefly as Director General of the ISI. What more can you tell us about General Munir?
Rana Banerji: Yes, thank you Karan. General Munir was first Commander Northern Areas, which looks after the Gilgit-Pakistan border with India when General Bajwa was the 10 Core Commander in Rawalpindi. Before then, he has also served a stint as a Defense Attache in Saudi Arabia. He is from the 17th course of the Officers Training School, Mangla which is a feeder stream, which served to provide officers to the Pakistan Army at times of grave shortage. It had been started in 1948 and used to function from Kohat in Northwest Frontier Province; later it was shifted to Mangla. Munir is from the 17th course, which is of 1985-86 vintage, which is just senior to the 75th PMA long course from which General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, the present Core Commander Rawalpindi has also been promoted to the other four stars top slot of chairman, Joiny Chiefs of Staff Committee.
KT: Now you pointed out that General Munir comes from the Officers Training School’s ’85-86 batch at Mangla. Does that mean he is not a graduate of the Pakistan Military Academy?
RB: Yes, though this is not really a disqualification. There is a caste system type of perception which operates, where officers who graduate from a regular long course of the PMA Kakul consider themselves superior. But this has not prevented other officers from OTC-OTS stream to reach the top slot. Notably, General Zia-ul-Haq himself was from the OTS stream, as was General Musa, who succeeded Ayub. And also Zia’s Vice Chief K.M. Arif, who virtually ran the army during Zia’s long years of martial law rule, was also from the OTS stream.
KT: Tell me, because General Munir comes from the OTS and not from the Pakistan Military Academy, will there be any resentment on the part of officers who he has now superseded – because he’s become chief while they haven’t – who were from the military academy? Could this be a cause of resentment?
RB: Not really. There is the tradition in the Pakistan Army, because the chief enjoys so much power, that as soon as he steps into the mantle, dissent will automatically die down and all senior officers will rally behind him in support. Also, technically he is senior to the 75th long course. He has benefited from this strange work of faith where though he was to retire two days before General Bajwa, his name was included in the panel and he was the seniormost who has been selected.
KT: Now you mentioned that earlier under General Bajwa, he served as General Officer, commanding Northern Areas. He also then went on to serve as corps commander Gujranwala. In the Pakistan Army system, how important are these posts?
RB: Well the FCNA post is very important. It is a part of the Rawalpindi corps commands offensive front against India, whereas the Gujranwala corps is a defensive Corps. So he has had experience of both an offensive corps and a defensive corps in these two assignments.
KT: Now I believe he’s what’s called a ‘Hafiz Quran’, which means he can recite the holy book in its entirety. Does that also mean that he is somewhat fundamentalistic in his attitude or is that an incorrect conclusion?
RB: It should not necessarily follow. He did this course, which is a prescribed official course through some madrasas which have government backing. But he did this course when he was a colonel, having a string to his bow where he can be considered an expert to recite the Quran, should normally help him in his standing within the Army, though it does not necessarily grant him as a fundamentalist.
Attitude to India
KT: What do we know of General Munir’s attitude to India? Will he be like General Bajwa, more open to want to have economic relations even though they didn’t increase despite General Bajwa’s efforts, or will he be more hardline?
RB: I would think he would be more hardline. We do not have any readily available record of his statements in the open domain on what he thinks or feels about India. He has been fairly low profile in this regard. But we should assume that he will generally be hardline and at the moment, his credentials and his priorities would focus elsewhere to the domestic front. So on India he cannot afford to be seen to be very pragmatic or over friendly to India.
KT: You said that he’s likely to be more hardline than General Bajwa. Now it was under General Bajwa that the 2003 ceasefire was renewed a year and a half, nearly two years ago. Will General Munir respect that ceasefire, because under Bajwa for the last almost two years that ceasefire has been pretty scrupulously observed. Will that continue to be the case?
RB: I would think so. What is a necessary to realise is that even today there has been a press release from the ISPR, which has criticised the recent announcement by the Indian Northern Areas, the Northern Command General, about readiness to occupy Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. This statement has been criticised by the ISPR. So at this juncture, when the new chief is just going to step into his mantle, the Pakistan Army would be very careful not to let any sign of weakness appear in their official posture. So India should factor in this environment in determining their responses and avoid needless hard rhetoric.
KT: Absolutely. This is a transition period for the Pakistan Army, and therefore it is a sensitive and delicate period, and therefore the Army will be on alert, and they will therefore be very concerned about statements being made by our Northern Army Commander. But that apart, will General Munir observe scrupulously the 2003 ceasefire? It was observed very scrupulously by General Bajwa for almost two years. Will Munir continue that?
RB: I should think so, because of the grave economic constraints that Pakistan still suffers. Any escalation on military retribution would have an economic cost which Pakistan’s military can ill-afford at this juncture.
Controversies
KT: Let’s come at this point to two controversies that surround General Munir’s appointment. The first, and you hinted at that a moment ago, the first is that he retires on the 27th of this month. General Bajwa only retires on the 29th. So can there be legal questions raised, perhaps even court cases, about General Munir’s appointment as Army Chief, two days after his technical retirement?
RB: There can be, though just now in the press statement given by Khwaja Asif, the Defence Minister, he has mentioned to journalists that all aspects have been taken care of in the latest cabinet meeting, which was held this morning and, which apparently had the objective of resolving this lingering technical issue by making certain amendments in the rules of business relating to the Army Act 1952, where any such changes regarding promotions or extensions of officers of the rank of Lieutenant-General or above require prior assent of the president.
Now there still remains a question, a doubt, about what sort of role the president would take, because last night, former Prime Minister Imran Khan gave a statement that Dr Alvi would definitely consult him about the summary of names when it comes to him. So far the summary has not gone, it is just going to be said, although the announcement has already been made. So the present government, PLMM government of Shahbaz Sharif, is calculating, taking a calculated position that the president at this stage will not make an issue of it, though this cannot be ruled out.
KT: The report put out by Dawn, Pakistan’s leading newspaper, on their website shortly after the announcement of General Munir was made, clearly says that as yet President Alvi has not given his clearance. Now you’re saying that, in fact, Imran Khan last night has been claiming that President Alvi will consult him before clearance is given. If President Alvi were to consult a former prime minister, that would presumably be constitutionally incorrect. So let’s leave that aside, that is obviously between President Alvi and Imran Khan, but clearly it would be constitutionally incorrect. But what are the chances that President Alvi might pick up on the fact that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has appointed as Army Chief a man who technically retires two days before he takes over? Might that be grounds for refusing to clear General Munir’s name, or do you think that at the end of asking questions and expressing concern, President Alvi will accept and clear the name?
RB: Well you see underArticle 243(4), he is bound by the advice of the prime minister. However under Article 48, which precedes Article 243, or under 48(1), the president has the power to hold on to his assent for a period of 15 days. He can refer back the advice to the prime minister and this would delay the whole process for about between 15 to 25 days. If the prime minister sends back the same advice, then it would be binding on the president. This is how the Constitutional position stands.
KT: Okay.
RB: So if this sort of step is resorted to by the president, there will be a certain limbo in which the new chief would be placed.
KT: Absolutely. There could be a 15-day delay if President Alvi were to choose to send the name back, and it then requires reiteration by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
What about a second controversy that surrounds the appointment of General Munir, and again you’ve hinted at it. It arises from the fact that as DG ISI, he exposed corruption that was allegedly connected to Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Sheikh and apparently also some of her relatives. This is why he was removed and only served very briefly, I think nine or ten months, as Director General ISI. Does this mean that he is perceived to be anti-Imran Khan, and secondly, does it also mean that Imran Khan will resent this appointment for this reason?
RB: Well conventional wisdom would suggest that this was the reason why Imran was feeling so upset at Nawaz Sharif having decided to support Asim Munir’s candidature when Shahbaz Sharif went to London to consult him, and it need not necessarily follow because this was something Asim Munir is said to have done in his capacity as the DG ISI because he felt that if any allegations of this nature became public, it would dent the image of the then Prime Minister Imran Khan and he had conveyed this thing in confidence to the Prime Minister for this very reason.
Yeah, it’s a different matter that Imran took umbrage about it; he kept quiet at that time but he later told Bajwa to remove him because he was interfering in his personal affairs. So it could prevail both ways, Asim Munir may have this resentment, but if he wants to grow into the mantle of an army chief, he need not carry the vindictiveness forward if he has to diffuse the politically fraught, polarised situation between the present PDM government and the opposition of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party.
KT: Absolutely, how Asim Munir behaves towards Imran Khan after Asim Munir becomes Army chief, we don’t know and there may be good reasons as you suggest that Asim Munir will not be anti-Imran Khan once he becomes Army Chief. But it’s also clear that in the eyes of Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif’s elder brother and the former prime minister, the reason he was pushing for Asim Munir as Army Chief is because, he believes, Nawaz Sharif believes, that Asim Munir would keep Imran Khan in check. Is that the real reason why Nawaz Sharif was pushing for Asim Munir as Army chief, or are there other explanations for Nawaz Sharif being close to Munir?
RB: No, I am not aware of other reasons. You see, there is this general expectation and awareness on part of the senior Sharif brothers that Imran Khan by his recent, very unparliamentary statements against the senior Army generals, and particularly General Bajwa, has antagonised the entire cohort of senior Army leaders. And this became clear during the joint press conference of October 27 when the DG ISPR and the DG ISI General Nadeem Anjum came before the public and they clearly castigated Imran for having made this type of statement, calling the Army leaders as neutrals or “jaanwars”, or betrayers like Mir Sadiq. And then yesterday again General Bajwa in his farewell speech at a martyr’s conference, once again flagged this issue by saying that certain politicians in recent times have criticised the Army; while they had a right to criticise the army, they should not have used such unparliamentary language.
KT: Absolutely.
RB: The Sharifs are calculating very clear-headedly that this type of anti-Imran feeling will be of the benefit to them to provide a level-playing field in the future, before the next elections, for Nawaz Sharif to come back, to have his disqualification waived, and to have a proper contest between the PDM and the PTI, particularly in Punjab, during the next elections.
KT: For the audience’s sake, I should point out that a couple of days ago Imran Khan has said that he will accept any name as Army Chief put forward. He may not mean it. It may have simply been a clever, expedient, political thing for him to say, but say it he did.
Let me now come to Imran Khan’s March, which is supposed to reach Rawalpindi and Islamabad on Saturday the 26th, and Imran Khan has said he will be there in person to address the rally. [Update: Khan on Saturday cancelled the Islamabad protest.] That will be the conclusion of the march. Do you believe that as new Army Chief, General Munir will permit the Long March to reach Islamabad? Earlier in an interview to me, former DG ISI General Durrani had said that the Army will take preventive and preemptive action, and prevent the rally either reaching Islamabad, or entering parts of Islamabad that are considered sensitive. Do you believe therefore that General Munir as Army Chief will let the rally complete its journey and reach Islamabad or enter sensitive parts of the capital?
RB: Both options are possible or permissible. You see, it will all depend on whether there is any violence during the rally. Imran Khan has sought permission to land his helicopter at a parade ground and also there is an earlier request for the venue of the meeting. Whether this is to be an I9 area, which is non-controversial, or it is nearer the red zone areas of the D-Chowk, that is what is going to make the decision for the Army Chief. In any case, it will be done through the law and order authorities of the civilian company, that is the Interior Ministry and the Islamabad police administration. So the Army will come into the forefront only if it is requested by the Islamabad civilian administration to come to their aid.
KT: Well let me at this point ask you this question. If the rally that is held by Imran Khan turns violent or there is trouble and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif calls upon the Army to control the situation, will General Munir as the new Army Chief agree, or might he be concerned about sending his soldiers to fire on their own countrymen? In an interview that Najam Sethi, the editor-in-chief of the Friday Times and the former Caretaker Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab Province, gave me a little while ago, he felt that the Army would be reluctant in those situations to fire and might actually put pressure on the government to negotiate with Imran Khan. Now there’s a new Army Chief, he has a background, or so people believe, of being anti-Imran Khan. So how will General Munir respond? Will he accept a request to control the situation, even if that includes firing on Pakistani citizens?
RB: This is a very difficult question to answer. It could go either way. Najam is right in suggesting that the Army would be very reluctant, but at the same time there is this feeling of resentment among the senior Army Generals that Imran has been allowed to go too far and too much leeway has been given to him. Also figuring in this whole issue would be the response of the senior judiciary, which has in the past been very pro-Imran. What they do now – lately, they have been a little more neutral or difficult in asking Imran not to provoke needless violence or to explain why he did not adhere to the earlier May 25 call of not going to B-Chowk. So he has not, Imran has not been very clear in answering these questions. So it’s a very difficult thing to say how this will pan out, but by and large it will be a difficult situation and that’s what Imran is calculating on to make his Long March, which was almost fizzling out, relevant once more. He is hoping to play on persisting differences within the senior echelons of the Pakistan Army about this whole rigmarole and controversy of succession to General Bajwa.
KT: In other words, General Munir could face a serious challenge almost two-three days after the appointment as army chief, as early as Saturday or Sunday.
RB: That’s right.
Army and political interference
KT: Now yesterday General Bajwa in that favourable speech at Martyr’s Day that you alluded to a moment ago, also spoke about the Army’s attitude to political interference. He said the Army has decided not to interfere in any political matter. He then added pointedly, “I assure you, we are adamant on this and will remain so.” Would that also be General Munir’s position? Is he also equally adamant that the days when the Pakistan Army took over are over, and now the Army will play a constitutional role? Army interference, Army taking over the country is ruled out, will that be General Munir’s attitude as well?
RB: Yes, this is a collegiate consensus of the Generals which has been thrashed out and I would presume that the new Chief would follow the trend set by Bajwa. Of course every Chief, when he becomes the Chief, sets his own tone in how such issues will be dealt with, so we will have to factor that in how Asim Munir responds. But technically they will profess to remain neutral.
General Sahir Shamshad Mirza
KT: Now one quick question about General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, who has been appointed today as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Until that appointment was announced, and it was announced at the same time as General Munir’s appointment as Army Chief, General Mirza was Corps Commander Rawalpindi. Briefly what can you tell us about General Mirza, but briefly?
RB: Oh, he has been a very brilliant officer and his peer group always considered him to be very, very good. He was Director General Military Operations, then Chief of General Staff, and now Corps Commander Rawalpindi. Very low profile, he comes from a very humble background from Chakwal, Punjab which is a heartland, traditional recruiting area for Punjabi soldiers and officers in the Army, and overall has had a profile where he is considered very balanced, very correct, having the confidence of the rank and file. So in a sense he would feel hard done by, by this choice of Munir at the last minute, because otherwise, normally he would have become the Chief of Army Staff. The other post of four-star general, that is the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, he’s more ceremonial in nature, though it oversees the Pakistani nuclear complex – but not for operational reasons.
KT: In a nutshell, if the present prime minister had not tried to find a way, and we presume he’s done it successfully, of promoting General Munir, despite the fact General Munir retires two days before General Bajwa, if that hadn’t been done then you’re saying it was likely that General Mirza would have been Army Chief. Or that’s your hunch.
RB: Yes either Mirza or Azhar Abbas, who is an equally well-reputed officer, having done key assignments of General, Chief of General Staff and also the Corps Command in Rawalpindi.
KT: So this means both Generals Mirza and Abbas will have a certain grudge, a certain ill-feeling, because they have lost out to someone who technically should have retired but two days after retirement gets the job they wanted.
RB: Yes possibly, but then this is where the tradition of the Chief’s position in Pakistan Army will come in – they will all rally and fall in line behind the chief.
KT: Mr Banerji, I’m going to take a little break at that point. We finished talking about General Asim Munir and what sort of person he is, about his background, how Imran Khan will respond to his appointment, why it pleases Nawaz Sharif in particular that he has become Army Chief, and what will be General Munir’s attitude to India.
After the break I wanted to come back and briefly touch upon the pretty shocking revelations made by Ahmad Nurrani, one of Pakistan’s foremost journalists, on his website “Fact Focus”, alleging that General Bajwa and his family, during the last six years when General Bajwa was Army Chief, have amassed a total of Rs 12.7 billion in accumulated assets. How accurate is this report, because it does come with actual tax returns of General Bajwa, General Bajwa’s wife and General Bajwa’s daughter-in-law. How accurate are these allegations? What will be the implications for General Bajwa? And what will be the response of the new Army Chief, because now this is a problem he has to face? All of that in a moment’s time after the break.
Ahmad Nurrani’s allegations
KT: Mr Banerji, a couple of days ago, a Pakistani journalist called Ahmad Nurrani on his website, “Fact Focus”, published the present but retiring Army Chief General Bajwa’s tax returns. He also published the tax returns of General Bajwa’s wife as well as General Bajwa’s daughter-in-law. And Ahmed Nurrani claimed that during the last six years – those are the six years when General Bajwa has been Army Chief – the Bajwa family has accumulated assets more than Rs 12.7 billion.
Almost immediately the website was blocked, and I presumed that was done by the Pakistan government, and within hours Pakistan’s Defence Minister ordered an immediate inquiry, which was asked to report back to him in 24 hours, into the leaks of the Bajwa tax returns. Does the fact that Ahmad Nurrani’s website was instantly blocked, and does the fact that the Defence Minister ordered an inquiry that had to report in 24 hours, suggest that the allegations made by Nurrani are correct?
RB: Yes, I have seen this report. It is the Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who has ordered the investigation, by a senior officer of the Federal Bureau of Revenue. Yes, the collection of assets or the increase in the assets of the Bajwa family and those of his son’s wife are remarkable, but if you see the general pattern of wealth acquired by Pakistan’s Generals and retired Generals in the past, these are passé for the elite in Pakistan. So it will of course raise eyebrows.
Ahmed Nurrani, as you know, is in exile, he had to leave Pakistan and he is now based in New York. Earlier, he had run a similar exposé about the other Bajwa, General Asim Bajwa, whose wife ran a chain of pizza shops in America, and General Asim Bajwa was earlier the head of the CPEC authority, and an advisor to Prime Minister Imran Khan. He had to leave as advisor, but nothing much happened about the allegations on amassing of wealth. The same sort of inquiry results could be likely in case of General Bajwa, unless Imran Khan comes back to power and then takes it on himself to persecute the retired former Army chief, by which time Asim Munir as the new Chief would have settled down and traditionally again, the Army Chiefs have always protected the institution and their past senior generals, as has been the case with General Musharraf’s problems: Rahim Sharif as the Army Chief protected him after a point when the civilian government was determined to deal with him on grounds of sedition.
KT: If I understand your answer correctly, you’re saying the real danger to General Bajwa will occur if Imran Khan comes back to power. That means he has to win an election and at the moment it does look as if he would win a free election, his popularity is so great at the moment. The danger is if he comes back, he would have a grudge against General Bajwa because General Bajwa failed to support him and ended up supporting his opponents and helping Shahbaz Sharif become Prime Minister. In those circumstances, Ahmed Nurrani’s revelations would give Imran Khan grounds on which to prosecute, or even possibly persecute, General Bajwa. But you’re adding that there’s a tradition in Pakistan that Army Chiefs support and protect their predecessors, and General Munir by then would be Army Chief. He would protect General Bajwa, and as we know General Munir was the person who in fact exposed Imran Khan’s wife’s corruption, or alleged corruption, and therefore his relationship with Imran may not be the best, and he may in fact lean towards supporting General Bajwa instead.
That I understand, but what I want to ask you is, how credible are the allegations made by Nurrani? If I read that report correctly, it seems that literally days before she got married to General Bajwa’s son, the daughter-in-law became a billionaire by acquiring assets, and that none of her sisters achieved the same level of wealth as she did. The second thing that emerges from Nurrani’s report is that until she became the Army Chief’s wife, General Bajwa’s wife had not filed any tax returns. But shortly after he became Army Chief, she started filing tax returns and she too was showing billions of wealth. And the third thing that emerges is that General Bajwa, somewhere in 2017, revised three or four times the return he had filed in 2013, which was the last return filed before he became Army Chief. And he kept saying that he was remembering things that he had forgotten to put into the original 2013 return.
Now, to a layman like me, that does sound all very fishy, as if this family was fast acquiring assets and then backdating them by revising their earlier returns. But you understand the situation better, so in your eyes how damning is the evidence or the allegation?
RB: The evidence is damning all right. The documents cited by Nurrani are genuine. They are genuine tax returns which even Ishaq Dar the Finance Minister has acknowledged, after the findings of the preliminary inquiry that they have been accessed through somebody who had access to the records in Islamabad and by another person in Lahore. He has not revealed the names. But this could be due to the fact that there has been certain amount of resentment against General Bajwa, even within the senior echelons of the Pakistan Army, which would explain the timing of this leak or report at this juncture by some disgruntled elements within the army.
But again, see the love of Pakistani army, generals, brigadiers, what have you for both land and wealth of office has been very great. So this has been looked upon with the Nelson’s Blind Eye in the past and I don’t think this pattern will change. Even General Kayani, after he retired lot of allegations about his alleged corruptions came to the fore which were not liked by other senior generals, who did not benefit General Kayani’s tenure. So these types of things will keep happening, but the system of the elite and the perks which nearly everyone in the military enjoy will not really be questioned or brought to book. That is what I feel.
KT: I am told by people in Pakistan that in fact what Ahmad Nurrani has revealed is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m also told that there could be more revelations, particularly now that General Bajwa will be demitting office on the 29th. Would that make the situation far worse for General Bajwa?
RB: It could, but it will all depend on the protective umbrella of the new Army Chief General Munir, and of course the possibility of what sort of stand Imran Khan takes before he actually comes back to power. This would be a process over the next seven-eight months which will unfold. At the same time, the present ruling dispensation of the PDM will focus on now bringing Imran to book for all his misdemeanours, including the theft of watches and sale of watches from the toshakhana and other cases in which he has been implicated. So they will make sure that he keeps running around the courts and there will be a certain amount of pressure on the courts to be even-handed. So I think the focus would be diverted from General Bajwa’s riches.
KT: Okay, that’s very interesting. A lot depends upon how Imran Khan, even in opposition, plays up this issue and how he builds up the national mood to mood of concern about the former or the present Army Chief’s corruption. But on the other hand the new regime, and perhaps with the help of General Munir, would also be targeting Imran Khan and the allegations that he’s been stealing watches or acquiring watches cheaply from the toshakhana and selling them at a profit. Therefore, the attention could deflect from Bajwa to Imran Khan.
But there’s one other thing you said. It’s widely believed that the tax returns are not just authentic but they were given to Ahmad Nurrani by some sources within the army. That must worry General Bajwa. It must worry even General Munir that the Army is fracturing to the extent that people are leaking tax returns of the serving sitting Army Chief.
RB: Yes, in fact that is going to be a main preoccupation or priority for General Munir, to take the army with him in the sort of first few steps that he takes the postings and transfers that he does, and how he accommodates disgruntled generals who have been feeling that Bajwa has not been so fair in his dealings with them. So this is going to be his first priority, even before the impasse in the domestic polarised political situation between civilian political parties. So, Asim Munir will have to be seen to be leading the Army in a united manner.
General Munir’s stance on corruption
KT: One last question. General Asim Munir is, as you said, a Hafiz e Quran. He may not be fundamentalist in his attitude to religion, but he can recite the entire Quran and that clearly means that the values and principles of the Holy Book matter to him. Secondly, as DG ISI, he was the man who felt conscience found to inform Imran Khan about his wife’s alleged corruption, for which he lost his job. Given that he’s taken these high-principle stands in the past, do you think as Army Chief he will seek to clean up the Army’s Augean Stables, to try and put a full stop to the corruption that Army Generals in Pakistan have traditionally benefited from?
RB: That’s unlikely. You see there are Generals who are honest who have had personal standards – and the person who comes to mind most obviously is General Durrani himself, the former DG ISI, who has been one of the more honest generals and he hasn’t amassed so many riches as normally generals do. He was later on given a chance to be Ambassador in Saudi Arabia and also in Germany, where he improved his financial status. Similarly one can say about the late General Gul Hasan, who was unceremoniously sacked by Bhutto after two-three years, before he could complete his full term. Again he was from a town, Pabi in Nowshera, and he is supposed to have left the post of Chief just with his one car and a very simple sort of standard of living. But those are days of the past.
Generals now have benefited from allotments of various defence housing societies which have been formed and there is an escalating pattern of land allotments, preferentially given, which they obtain at very cheap rates and they can sell at great lucrative value. This has been dealt with quite extensively by a person like Dr Ayesha Sidiqqa in her book Military Inc and also the revised edition thereof. So the Army will take this type of thing in their stride and I don’t think Munir will be able to change much, whatever his personal predilections are of simple living, if at all.
KT: And I presume in the course of the years he spent as Director General ISI or corps commander Gujranwala, General Munir also benefited from some of these land allotments.
RB: We don’t know much about it. He’s said to come from very modest middle class origins, from a place called Dheri near Rawalpindi. His father was a simple teacher and he has been regarded as a fairly straight-shooter type of person, who has gone by the book. But we don’t know much about his later acquisition of wealth.
KT: Mr Banerji, thank you very much for this detailed account of General Munir’s past, your assessment of his qualities as the new incoming Army Chief, his attitude to India, his relationship with Shahbaz Sharif-Nawaz Sharif on the one hand and Imran Khan on the other, and also thank you for explaining precisely how damning are the allegations made against General Bajwa, but also how it’s likely, just as other earlier Army Chiefs have got away with it, General Bajwa probably will as well. I thank you for this interview. Many thanks indeed.
Rana Banerji, one of India’s experts on the Pakistan army, paints an extensive picture of General Asim Munir in an interview with Karan Thapar.
Rana Banerji, one of India’s experts on the Pakistan army, says Asim Munir is likely to be more hardline in his attitude to India than the outgoing Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa but adds that the 2003 ceasefire along the LoC, which was reinforced in early 2021, will be strictly enforced.
Banerji, who is also a former special secretary R&AW, says General Munir will abide by the stand taken by General Bajwa and repeated by the latter on Wednesday, November 23, that “the Army (has) decided not to interfere in any political matter … I assure you we are adamant on this and will remain so.”
In a 40-minute interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Banerji paints a picture of General Munir – from his background as the son of a small teacher in a town near Rawalpindi through to his training at the Officers Training School, to his qualification as a Hafiz-e-Quran, his time as defence attache in Saudi Arabia and the important jobs he has held in the Army such as Quartermaster General, General Officer Commanding Force Command Northern Areas and Corps Commander Gujranwala.
Banerji, the author of The Pakistan Army: Composition, Character and Compulsions, also discusses the two controversies surrounding General Munir’s appointment. First, the fact he retires on November 27 and General Bajwa, the present chief, only retires on November 29. Second, the role General Munir played during his brief stint as DG ISI, exposing allegations of corruption surrounding Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Sheikh.
Banerji explains why Nawaz Sharif is said to be close to General Munir. He also discusses how General Munir is likely to respond to Imran Khan’s long march, which is due to culminate in a major rally in Rawalpindi/Islamabad on November 26. He also answers the question of how the new Army chief will respond if the Sharif government calls on the army to control the situation in the event there’s violence at Imran Khan’s Islamabad rally.
In part two of the interview, Banerji speaks about recent revelations on Ahmad Noorani’s website, Fact Focus, alleging that in the last six years (when General Bajwa was Army chief), the Bajwa family has accumulated assets “more than Rs. 12.7 billion”. Ahmad Noorani has published multiple tax returns filed by General Bajwa, his wife and his daughter-in-law. Shortly after these revelations were made public, Noorani’s website was blocked and the finance minister ordered an immediate inquiry into the leak of the Bajwa family tax returns.
The retired special secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat incharge of RAW, covers the Taliban’s history and the people who run it.
On August 27, The Wire carried a video interview of Rana Banerji, retired special secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat incharge of RAW, by Karan Thapar. In this comprehensive interview of 45 minutes, Banerji sheds light on how Taliban came to be what it is today from its formative years, and how Pakistan has aided its rise for its own strategic purposes.
Banerji, based on his nuanced reading and observation, covers a broad sweep of the Taliban’s history and the people who run it. His insights offer a useful framework to strategically predict how the Taliban would operate in the days to come, now that they have seized power in Afghanistan.
Below is the full transcript of the interview. It has been edited lightly in places. Watch the full interview here.
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Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. The speed and the drama with which Kabul collapsed on the fifteenth of August has raised two fundamental questions that as yet have not been answered: What exactly was Pakistan’s role, and what do we know about the personalities and factions that make up the Taliban. My guest today is perhaps one of the few people in the country who has answers to these critical questions. The retired special secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat incharge of RAW. He’s Rana Banerji.
Mr. Banerji, let me start with a simple question, and then we’ll build from there. Everyone knows that Pakistan’s ISI has played a critical role in funding and also in militarily assisting the Taliban. Most people believe that Pakistan also played a role in creating the Taliban. The problem is no one has precise details. So can you begin by giving people an idea of the sort of concrete help the ISI gave the Taliban in these three critical respects?
Rana Banerji: Thank you, first of all, Karan for having me on your show. The Taliban actually came into existence in the autumn of 1994 in a mosque known as the White Mosque. It’s about 50 kilometres from Kandahar. And it was a set of religious devotees who decided to stop certain criminal extortionist gangs which were operating on the highways and harassing a lot of innocent people. There were cases of kidnapping, rape, extortion of goods. So this was effectively stopped by Mullah Omar’s gang. Mullah Omar was authorised as the commander of Maulana Abdul Samad who was technically the first emir of what later became the Taliban. So they started operating and were fairly successful.
KT: So at this stage, the Taliban was the creation of Afghan people themselves in Kandahar. There was Pakistani involvement in the creation of the Taliban.
RB: That’s right. In fact, when Pakistanis heard about it, there was an official convoy of the Pakistani government, consignment of trucks, which had been halted by a similar gang. And General Naseerullah Babar, who was interior minister of the Benazir government then, he decided to take their help and was able to succeed in getting this help. Out of gratitude then, they decided to give Mullah Omar a further bigger role, to expand his influence northwards towards Kabul and also eastwards, which was encouraged also by the then Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
KT: So the Pakistan connection with Taliban began as a result of a fortuitous event. Pakistani trucks were held up, they wanted to be cleared, they used Mullah Omar and his people to clear it, and in gratitude, they began the relationship.
RB: Yes. They made available a cache of arms which were hidden in tunnels near Kandahar, which had been intended for use against the Russian invaders. So this was given to Mullah Omar. And also he got money from President Rabbani according to a well-known Pakistani author.
KT: Why did he get money from Rabbani?
RB: To discipline Hekmatyar, who was nettling Rabbani too much. And Rabbani was dependent for survival on Ahmad Shah Massoud who was his defence minister. So the whole thing was cracking up already in Kabul.
KT: So in its early days, the Taliban was getting support from Pakistan through Naseerullah Babar (Pakistan’s interior minister) but it also was getting funding from the Afghan government of the day, which is Rabbani’s government, or Rabbani himself.
RB: There was a report that there was initial funding of three million dollars, of which the Taliban, Mullah Omar’s group, got only two million. One million was kept away by an intermediary.
KT: But the interesting thing is that in the beginning days, the early days of the Taliban, it was funded both by Pakistan and by Rabbani. And Rabbani was by the way the head of the old Northern Alliance. And Massoud was his defence minister.
RB: That’s right. So thereafter the ISI help can be seen in three or four phases. The Taliban, or Mullah Omar had come across Colonel Sultan Amir Tarar, who was a former army officer, trained by the Americans and also a member of the Pakistani special services group. After retirement, he had become the Consul General of Herat. He was roped in to guide and train the Taliban…
KT: By the Pakistanis?
RB: By the Pakistanis. And the entire military training was given by Colonel Sultan Amir Tarar who got the mystical name of ‘Imam’.
KT: So Colonel Tarar actually did give military training of a pretty formal sort?
RB: Yes. Absolutely. And then there was funding continuously by the ISI because they felt in the first phase that they would be able to install the Taliban with some popular support in governance in Kabul. And this is the phase ‘94 to ‘96.
KT: When did the Pakistanis move from simply being grateful to the Taliban and militarily training them, and then beginning to think that maybe they could create a government out of Taliban. How long did that take?
RB: A few months only. 1994 to 1995 I would think. And then 1996, the Taliban were ready to move into Kabul. And they were funded and they were assisted militarily with convoys, with actual special services men in commoner garb accompanying their motorcycles and jeeps when they moved into Kabul.
KT: So when the Taliban actually first in 1996 began their campaign to go straight to Kabul, they were funded by the Pakistanis, they were given equipment by the Pakistanis, they were given, I presume, weapons as well.
RB: Yes. And by that time the ISI had lost faith in Hekmatyar who was their earlier protégé. Because Hekmatyar was not able to fight sufficiently well.
KT: And the Taliban now got the Pakistan backing instead.
RB: Yes, yes.
KT: And Pakistan, therefore, in a sense could have, you could say, funded, militarily trained the Taliban conquest in the 1996 period of Kabul.
RB: Yes. And then we come to the second phase, where the actual governance of Taliban was also assisted by Pakistanis in a very big way. Officers, plain clothes assistants, bureaucrats, they all went there and helped the Taliban to consolidate normal bureaucratic governance.
KT: So there were Pakistani officers and bureaucrats actually sitting in Kabul from 1996 to 2001 during the five years that the Taliban was ruling.
RB: Yes. Not only in Kabul but in the outlying provinces. And when 9/11 happened and the Americans decided to bomb the hell out of Taliban and the governance system there, there was the infamous Kunduz airlift, where almost thousand to two thousand – the number varies – Pakistani officials, both serving army officers as well as civilian bureaucrats, had to be airlifted out in sorties by the Pakistani air force, in the knowledge of the American move.
KT: Absolutely. I remember that period very clearly. We saw pictures on television of Pakistani soldiers now dressed in civilian clothes actually being airlifted out of Kunduz.
RB: That’s right.
KT: In other words, for the five years of Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001, much of the military spine, much of the administrative spine were supplied by Pakistan.
RB: That’s right.
KT: So you could say that not only did Pakistan finance the first “conquest” of Kabul by the Taliban in ‘96, but then they in a sense provided the backbone for the government.
RB: Certainly.
KT: So the Taliban could not have ruled for that five year period without all the help and support they got from Pakistan.
RB: That’s right. And of course there were figurehead leaders, religious leaders, who were put in positions as defence minister or any other minister. So there was a shura which actually was seen to be governing the country.
KT: But the real governance was Pakistani officials?
RB: Well they also learned their ropes, the Taliban leaders.
KT: But the Pakistanis were there behind closed doors.
RB: Yes. To guide them, yes.
KT: Tell me, what sort of support did the Pakistanis give the Taliban from 2001, when they were thrown out by the Americans from Kabul, right up till 2021.
RB: Again, this has to be seen in three phases, if I may put it. The first phase was the withdrawal phase, when they were determined to save as many assets of theirs and ask them to lie low and settle down in various places in Pakistan. And these were the places which were not so much in the limelight, the federally administered tribal areas, from where the Miran Shah Shura took shape. And then there were the Peshawar refugee camps, where the Peshawar Shura of the Taliban was set up. And then there were outskirts of Quetta, there was another refugee camp there were the Quetta Shura was set up.
KT: So in each of these three instances the Pakistan government found sanctuaries and helped the Taliban settle there and create a second life for themselves now that they’ve been thrown out of Kabul.
RB: In this work, also they helped the escape of Osama bin Laden, first from Kandahar to Tora Bora caves, and from Tora Bora into Pakistan. And in this transition, Jalaluddin Haqqani, the Haqqani network head or tribal chief, came to their assistance in a major way. And Jalaluddin Haqqani, many people forget, was also an American asset, acknowledged to be a CIA asset earlier.
KT: And he just changed sides?
RB: No he remained with the Americans.
KT: So he was a double agent in a sense.
RB: Yes.
KT: Fascinating. Tell me something, in the first phase after 2001, the Pakistani found sanctuaries and helped the Taliban settle in Miran Shah, in Quetta, in Peshawar. What did they do in the second stage and the third stage?
RB: In the second stage you see Musharraf had come to power and the double dealing with the Americans started in real earnest. There were also a lot of Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechen rebels, Tajik islamic rebel outfits which had come along with Osama bin Laden. And Ayman al-Zawahiri. And Jalaluddin Haqqani himself had an Arab wife apart from his Afghan wife. One of his sons, Nasir, who was later killed, was in charge of handling all the funds, the hawala funds which used to come from…
KT: So you’re saying in the second stage the Pakistanis provided protection not just to the Taliban but to this collection of Uzbek, Arab, Tajik militants and jihadis who had come across with Taliban.
RB: Yes. That’s right. And that is when also the phenomenon of the Tehrik-i-Taliban developed particularly in the FATA, the tribal areas which were ruled at the time by the frontier crimes…
KT: But this should have worried the Pakistanis.
RB: Sorry?
KT: This should have worried the Pakistanis, that the Taliban from Afghanistan were now, under their protection, creating a Tehrik-i-Taliban in Pakistan.
RB: It didn’t worry them initially because they felt they had everything under their control…
KT: Which they didn’t eventually.
RB: Which they didn’t eventually because in the process of what happened, the Maliki system — which stood from the British time, where there used to a tribal elder as the Malik in the area and he was assisted by a civil servant who was designated a political agent in these areas — their reich stopped running. And it was the Maulanas and the well-funded clerics in these areas who became more power brokers. They had guns and they started to—
KT: Now the first stage you’ve established is when Pakistan found sanctuaries and settled the Taliban in Quetta, in Miran Shah, and in Peshawar. What sort of financing did they give them thereafter? What sort of facilities or military training did they give them? What sort of protection? Can you tell me about that quickly?
RB: Well there aren’t too many details about the funding, how it went, but one thing is for certain, the drug smuggling from these areas, both by the land route through Karachi and also by the land route into Iran and then into Western Europe, was manipulated by the Taliban to collect funds on their own.
KT: But protected by the Pakistanis?
RB: To a certain extent. In terms of, you know, custom and excise, etc. There is documentation of this in a BBC documentary called Traffic.
KT: So, in other words, the Pakistanis did not stop it from happening.
RB: Did not stop it happening.
KT: What sort of other financial facilities did they give Taliban from 2001 to 2021?
RB: Well again, you see, mainly these were hawala transactions to which they turned a blind eye. But 2004 onwards the Taliban started resurging in a major way because of malgovernance in Afghanistan by the Karzai regime.
KT: And what did the Pakistanis do then?
RB: They assisted them to go into these areas which were ungoverned, particularly in the…
KT: So the Pakistanis were then pushing the Taliban across the border, back into Afghanistan.
RB: Yes. They had them to control these areas. And there were local field commanders who were fighting the Afghan National Security Forces.
KT: Did the Pakistanis supply food, equipment, weapons?
RB: Everything. And also rest and recreation facilities. If the commander used to get injured they would take them to hospitals in Pakistan, in Karachi or Balochistan.
KT: So, in other words, the Pakistani government or the Pakistani authorities allowed the Taliban to use Pakistan as their deep base.
RB: Safe haven.
KT: As their safe haven, from which they could go back, get supplies, get treatment if they were injured, and then with Pakistani assistance, go back to carry on fighting.
RB: New towns, boom towns, developed outside Peshawar known as the university town in Peshawar and similarly I think Jafarabad or Pashtunabad in Quetta. There was another township developed almost in Quetta, just outside Quetta, where they bought up properties, new houses, etc. The leaders…
KT: Now tell me Mr. Banerji, did this sort of assistance continue from 2004 all the way to 2021, or were there stages when it got stepped up, when Pakistani involvement, ISI involvement, funding and training became more and more.
RB: It’s difficult to say that happened. But what is of relevance is that the Americans were all too aware that this was happening. And the Americans were trying basically to attain their own objective, to find where Osama bin Laden is hidden. Or has disappeared into. And the Americans tried to interact with the Taliban, to cause defections from within the senior Taliban leadership, in collaboration with, or in the knowledge of the Pakistan ISI.
KT: So the Americans were well aware that the Pakistanis were funding, supporting, equipping and giving weapons to the Taliban, pushing them across the border, allowing the Taliban to use Pakistan as a safe haven when they get injured but did nothing. They just winked at it right through the period.
RB: Well there was supposed to be intelligence cooperation to find out high-value assets and the understanding was that the Pakistanis would tell the Americans about the movement of high-value assets, Arabs, Syrians and so on and then they would be eliminated by…
KT: Which Pakistan occasionally did, but nowhere near sufficiently since Osama remained protected right until…
RB: The Americans found out that the information that was being given to them was being leaked, a few days in advance, to the terrorists themselves.
Taliban fighters march in uniforms on the street in Qalat, Zabul Province, Afghanistan, in this still image taken from social media video uploaded August 19, 2021 and obtained by Reuters
KT: I don’t want to get lost in the detail of this section, but I think this section is very important because it explains the 20-25 year background of Pakistani support and involvement with the Taliban. However, let me now get to the present time. When the Taliban on the fifteenth of August literally dramatically swept into Kabul and took over, there are some people who say that that was the culmination of a second Pakistani invasion or conquest of Kabul. Once again fronted by the Taliban. You agreed that when the Taliban took power in 1996 this description applied. Does it apply again in 2021?
RB: This time everybody was a little surprised at the manner in which the Afghan National Security Forces collapsed. Nobody expected it to happen with the speed that it did.
KT: But could the Taliban have done it and certainly at the speed at which they did it without the support, assistance, training from Pakistan?
RB: They may not have, but what contributed more was the morale loss of the Afghan National Security Forces. The announcement of the American ground forces withdrawal.
KT: So that description, a Pakistani invasion fronted by the Taliban applied in 1996. You don’t think it applies equally in 2021.
RB: Perhaps not equally, yes.
KT: Okay. Let me put this to you. On the very day that the Taliban entered and swept through Kabul, the fifteenth of August 2021, some of the most important leaders of the Northern Alliance, who were opponents of Pakistan, flew to Islamabad to seek safety, security and assurances from the Pakistan government. And these included Ahmad Shah Massoud’s brothers and important Hazara leaders like Khalili and Mohaqiq. If opponents of Pakistan are going to Pakistan to seek its support, sanctuary and safety, isn’t that a sure sign that Pakistan has become very important and very powerful in this part of the world?
RB: Well yes, that’s a way of looking at it. And it included also Yunus Qanuni, a former speaker of the parliament. Now all these players were very relevant actors of the Northern Alliance in 1997. But this time they could see the writing on the wall, in the manner in which they had no other option.
KT: And they sought support and succour from someone who was their “enemy”.
RB: Basically survival and safety of their lives. And there was the fig leaf of wanting to have Pakistani intercession for having inclusive governance.
KT: But this is what I’m making: At the end of the day, opponents of Pakistan, the Northern Alliance, were seeking safety and security for their own lives from Pakistan. This is why I say to you, isn’t this a sign of how influential and powerful Pakistan has become, once the Taliban took over for the second time.
RB: Yes. That is why there is so much of triumphalism. Because both the Pakistan army and the Pakistan, due to strategic terms, Pakistan civilian leadership believe that they have achieved the primary objective of their entire policy of supporting the Taliban, that is to keep Indian influence out of Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.
KT: And proof of that is that their opponents, Ahmad Shah Massoud’s brothers, the Hazara leaders Khalili and Mohaqiq are now knocking on Pakistan’s doors to say help us, support us, save us.
RB: Yes, that could be one way of looking at it.
KT: Let me at this point come to the second big issue I want to talk with you about. Until now we’ve talked about Pakistan’s role in funding, in training, in militarily supporting the Taliban right through the 25 years from 1995-96 to 2021. Let me now talk to you about the personalities and factions that make up the Taliban. Its present emir is a man called Hibatullah Akhundzada. What do we know about him, and why is he never seen?
RB: Well he’s a Nurzai from Panjpai, which is a district in Kandahar. His father was a religious cleric, head of a mosque in Kandahar. He himself was a middle low-level official in the judicial qazi court system of the first Taliban dispensation. Known to be a fairly religious, modest low-profile person. He was selected as a sort of patchwork unity among various factions and to be kept firmly under the control of the ISI. Because the previous emir Mullah Mansoor had become too high-profile.
KT: So this is very interesting. Akhundzada was chosen as a patchwork choice, both by different factions— in other words, I presume he was everyone’s number two and no one’s number one choice — but he was also chosen because he was acceptable to the ISI. His predecessor had stood up to the ISI and the ISI didn’t want someone like that again.
RB: That’s right. Though it’s not been clearly established, Iran had meddled with the Taliban and former emir had become friendly with the Iranians, which was not to the liking of the…
KT: Akhundzada’s predecessor. That was another reason why the ISI didn’t like him. So in other words, this was the lowest common denominator choice. Is that right?
RB: That’s right.
KT: Why is he never seen?
RB: He is by temperament like that. And he adopted a very consensual style of leadership among various factions, so nobody really complained much. And also there was an incident two years into his tenure, when his brother, who was also a preacher in a mosque in Kuchlak near Quetta, was killed in a bomb explosion. And the story goes that maybe there were some of his rivals who were trying to get at Akhundzada himself, because he used to go there to pray also.
KT: But tell me. He was the, as you say, the lowest common denominator. He was everyone’s number two and no one’s number one choice. But now he’s been there 5-6 years. Is he accepted and acknowledged as the head, as the emir, or are there still people who question his position.
RB: No, he’s more or less not questioned as an emir because he’s kept to a very proper and religious profile, which is similar to that of Mullah Omar himself. Though Mullah Omar had a different stature.
KT: So his religiosity has helped secure his position.
RB: Possibly.
KT: What role will he play when the Taliban form a government in Kabul. Will he head the government or do you believe he will seek a role above the government as supreme leader, something similar to Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran?
RB: Well the parallel doesn’t quite apply, but the parallel of Mullah Omar himself might be used.
KT: Which is?
RB: Mullah Omar never took power himself. He preferred to remain in Kandahar. He left the governance to a leadership council. Now similar type of thing may happen, with three deputies parcelling out actual real political power among themselves.
KT: If this happens, in whose hands will be, to use that Indian phrase, the remote control? Who will actually have power?
RB: Well the ISI will. And the major exponent of implementing that power would be Sirajuddin Haqqani.
KT: So regardless of who is president and regardless of who is the supreme leader (if they create that post), the ISI will have real power, and they will operate through Sirajuddin Haqqani, their favourite faction of the Taliban.
RB: That’s right. But this could change, you see. These calculations could change because of the ambitions of both Mullah Baradar himself and Mullah Yaqoob, the son of Mullah Omar.
KT: Let’s come to Mullah Baradar first, we’ll come to Mullah Yaqoob after that. Now he’s one of the three deputy commanders. He has spent eight years in detention in Pakistan, but he was also the critical key interlocutor for the talks with the Americans in Doha. Tell me more about him.
RB: That’s right. He’s a Popalzai which is one of the blue-blooded tribes of the Afghan dynasty, the Durrani society. So in the caste system that they have in their tribal society—
KT: He’s at the top
RB: He’s among the people at the top. Whereas Mullah Omar himself was a Hotak, a slightly lower in the pecking order of Ghilzai. But there is a story, not confirmed, of Mullah Omar’s wife and Mullah Baradar’s wife being co-brothers-in-law. And that why he called him ‘Baradar’ and that is where he got his name of ‘Mullah Baradar’.
KT: So the name ‘Baradar’ which is Farsi for ‘brother’ is actually a name given by Mullah Omar to someone who you think might have been a brother-in-law.
RB: Yes. That’s right. It’s never been proved because—
KT: Tell me more about Mullah Baradar.
RB: Yes. Now in 2008, he tried to establish links with President Karzai and also was amenable to the idea of talking to the Americans. And this was not to the liking of the ISI.
KT: Is that why he was detained?
RB: That’s right.
KT: And he spent roughly eight years in detention?
RB: Almost 10 years. Well, 2010 to 2018.
KT: Khalilzad apparently pressed on the Pakistanis to release him and he then became the head of the talks at Doha.
RB: Not immediately. Initially, he was in a drugged stupor state and he seemed to have been allowed to recover from that, because while in detention he was supposed to have been very much in a depressed and drugged state. He couldn’t make out his bearings and things like that.
KT: Drugs because he was being given drugs by the Pakistanis—
RB: Maybe
KT: Or because he had become a druggie himself
RB: No, no. Maybe because he was being given drugs to keep him in good humour or whatever.
KT: Now the Western press often speculates that Mullah Baradar could be the president whenever the government is set up. Do you think that is likely?
RB: That is possible yes. Because now he has been fairly savvy in the diplomatic dialogue that has gone on in Doha, where there are very many others, both hardliners and retainers of the ISI who are closely under their supervision but who are also in the dialogue team
KT: But he’s handled this well
RB: He’s handled it very well
KT: So he’s shown the ability to keep together different factions of hardliners and softer people who exist within the Taliban framework.
RB: Possibly.
KT: What about Mullah Yaqoob, who is the other deputy commander and is in fact Mullah Omar’s son?
RB: Yes. He’s much younger, and he has been in touch with some other field commanders who have actually been involved in the fighting. People like Ibrahim Sadr who has now been made Interior Minister and Mullah Zakir who has now been made the Defence Minister.
KT: Is he a rival of Baradar or do they get along with each other?
RB: That’s not known. Ultimately because he’s younger to Baradar, and he has the lineage of Omar, he would like to be anointed heir eventually, but he also has to contend with Sirajuddin Haqqani’s ambition.
KT: You’re also suggesting that Mullah Yaqoob has better links with the fighting branches of the Taliban. Baradar has better links with the political, negotiating branches.
RB: Well, yes. You can say that in a way.
KT: Where into all of this does Zahyabuddin Masjid fit in?
RB: Zabiullah Mujahid
KT: Yeah. Where does he fit in? He’s clearly the television face of the Taliban as a result of his press conferences and it’s his comments that have led people to talk about the possibility of Taliban 2.0. But is he critical and important, or is he just a spokesman?
RB: He’s just a spokesman. One of three, in fact, who have been used by the Taliban in the past.
KT: The other being Suhail Shaheen?
RB: Suhail Shaheen and one other person. They had been parcelled different areas to which they would deal. But Zabiullah possibly has the most photogenic face and he seems to have become more politically savvy of late. So that is why now he has been entrusted with the initial forays.
KT: But he’s not one of the critical top leaders?
RB: No. He was a middle-level or junior-level official in the culture ministry of the first Taliban dispensation.
KT: So he’s a middle-level Taliban person who’s acquired a lot of prominence because he’s fronting the press conferences and because he has a manner and perhaps, as you put it, a photogenic face that attracts attention and gets remembered.
RB: And an example of this is when he was asked the ticklish question in the press conference about visit of CIA chief William Burns. He stepped aside and asked the foreign office official of the Taliban to answer the question, which was of course replied to in a very non-committal manner.
KT: Now the faction that is perhaps of great interest to India is what’s called the Haqqani faction. Tell me about them. The Haqqanis are often considered the brutal, tough fighting wing of the Taliban. Mike Mullen, the former American chairman of the joint chiefs of staff calls them the veritable arm of the ISI…
RB: Yes
KT: And as you said, not only do they have connections with the ISI, but Jalaluddin Haqqani was once upon a time, your words were, almost an agent of America.
RB: That’s right.
KT: So they play the game of both sides?
RB: Perhaps not anymore, because they have designated Sirajuddin as a terrorist in their own 2012 order.
KT: Sirajuddin is also the third of the three deputy commanders of the Taliban, along with Mullah Yaqoob and Mullah Baradar.
RB: That’s right. The other two are not designated so far.
KT: So tell me more about the Haqqani group.
RB: Yes. Now, Jalaluddin’s sons—they have many sons, seven sons. Three or four of them got killed in the US reprisals, drone attacks or in actual fighting. But Nasir and Siraj and Badruddin, these were the most important sons. Now Badruddin got killed. Siraj also got killed in an ordinary crime in 2013 in Islamabad. But the Islamabad police was not allowed to make any investigations about the murder. His body was carried in a VIP convoy to the tribal areas and given a decent burial.
KT: This is further proof of the link between Pakistan ISI and the Haqqani
RB: Yes. So he’s touch-me-not. And there is of course the fictional serial, the Homeland 4 serial where you have the Haqqani group attacking the US embassy in Islamabad and going into their cipher room and all that.
KT: And as you said in the beginning, the Haqqani group is the favoured, preferred faction of the Taliban for the ISI
RB: For the ISI. And we have suffered at their hands, for example, the attack on our embassy in Kabul, where we lost one diplomat and one defence personnel, was directly planned and executed by them.
KT: So does most of ISI funding, most of ISI military equipment that goes to the Taliban go to the Haqqani group within the Taliban.
RB: There is no definite evidence of that
KT: But you suspect so?
RB: I would think so yes.
KT: But the interesting thing is that the Haqqani group only merged with the Taliban in the mid-1990s, after the Taliban had come to power the first time around. And there are also stories that although Jalaluddin Haqqani was a minister in the first Taliban government, Karzai is reported to have tried to reach out to him and involve him in Karzai’s government. Karzai didn’t succeed but it’s reported that the attempts were made. How close are the bonds that bind the Haqqani group to the rest of the Taliban? Or are there differences and cracks there?
RB: Well there are individual ambitions and differences but everybody’s afraid of the Haqqani faction. Even the Taliban leaders themselves may be afraid of them. Because of the patronage they enjoy from the ISI and because of the use of suicide bombs with great facility by them which is well known to exterminate their opponents instead Afghanistan. So most of these bombings etc were being done by the Haqqani faction.
KT: So the Haqqani faction has in a sense intimidated other leaders in the Taliban.
RB: That could be. In time, you see, the families and children of the other leaders come out of Pakistan and they no longer require rest and recreation, this relationship could change.
KT: That could change. That would be in the future, because up till now the relationship has been one in which Haqqanis, because of the support, funding from Pakistan, has somewhat intimidated the rest of the Taliban.
RB: That’s true. One other reason is that they are Zadrach. They are from an area called Zadran which is lower eastern Paktia, Khost. In the tribal, again, caste systems, the Zadran are the lowest among the…
KT: Why would that help them intimidate others?
RB: No, not intimidate. But to be looked down upon by other blue-blooded Afghans.
KT: But now you’re contradicting yourself—if they’re looked down upon they won’t intimidate and frighten people.
RB: At a later date I said. It could happen.
KT: Let me put this to you. It is reported that two Haqqani brothers, Khalil and Anis, are now responsible for security in Kabul today. If that’s true, then what does it suggest?
RB: Khalil is said to be an uncle. Also not perhaps direct uncle. A cousin of Jalaluddin. Much younger, of course, than Jalaluddin. Anis of course is one of his younger sons. And he was under detention for a while.
KT: But if security is in their hands what does it suggest?
RB: This could have been a temporary measure. Now they have appointed a new acting governor, mayor, and also an intelligence chief.
KT: So this story that security was in the hands of the Haqqanis, Anis and Khalil, is not a worrying factor. It was built up by the press as a moment of concern, but you’re saying it’s not necessarily so.
RB: Possibly. I mean, you have now an appointee, unless he has aligned now with the Haqqanis—Najibullah who has been appointed Intelligence Chief of this new government. And he was known to be closer to the Dadullah faction, which was not close to the Haqqanis in the old days.
KT: You’re confusing us with details, what is the point you’re making?
RB: We don’t know whether the intelligence chief appointee is definitely a Haqqani man.
KT: Okay. So in other words, the regime that is forming, to the extent that we can see, is not necessarily under Haqqani control—
RB: It could be an eclectic regime.
KT: It could be an eclectic regime. And the point you’re therefore reinforcing is that the initial belief that because Anis Haqqani was in Kabul, Khalil Haqqani was in Kabul, it was reported that the Haqqanis controlled Kabul’s security. That initial belief is questionable.
RB: Yeah. It could change.
KT: Let’s come very briefly to the situation in Afghanistan as it’s begun to emerge during the last 10-11 days. I believe the director general of the ISI flew to Kandahar when Mullah Baradar was there and they were seen together praying at a Mosque. There are also reports that Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spent a day or two in Kabul, but he himself has denied it. What does all of this suggest about the role Pakistan is playing in helping put together a Taliban government?
RB: Well they would definitely like to remain very close to whatever leadership emerges among the Taliban.
KT: And are they pulling the strings?
RB: They would definitely be pulling the strings. They’re trying to make it a pleasant phenomenon. Particularly Mullah Baradar having had this experience of detention in a Pakistani jail, he would be very sensitive to such, you know, behaviour.
KT: But then that…
RB: They’re going the extra mile.
KT: But then therefore there would be problems. Pakistanis want to pull the strings and ensure that their chosen people have critical posts. But Mullah Baradar, who has been in detention for eight years, will want to ensure that Pakistan’s role is limited. There are tensions here now.
RB: They could develop later. In the sense that Pakistan…The Taliban leadership will not immediately put a red rag to the Pakistani bull.
KT: They have already appointed Acting Minister of Defence, Acting Minister of Interior, as well as, I believe, an Acting Foreign Minister. They’ve also appointed a Finance Minister. They’ve also appointed an Acting Governor and an Acting Mayor. Now are these people, you suspect, the Pakistanis have put in place, or are they independent credible people who have support within Taliban? Which of the two?
RB: I think it is the latter because they have already played a reasonably well-known role in the actual fighting on the ground. And earlier they had not been accommodated to the extent that they had committed in the actual fighting.
KT: So they’re getting their rewards now?
RB: Possibly. But this is something one cannot assert for certain.
KT: But you’re also saying something else. Your sense, your hunch is that these are not Pakistani puppets being put in place. These are people with credible track records of their own.
RB: Yes. And the Taliban must have convinced the ISI that they have to accommodate them or the unity of whatever leadership—
KT: Not so long ago you were talking about how the remote control will be in ISI hands.
RB: It will still be.
KT: But now what you’re saying suggests that that remote control isn’t working because the Taliban is convincing the ISI that the people who they’re placing in acting positions are not necessarily all chosen ones. They’re people they’re rewarding because they’ve done good work.
RB: Well you see ISI would know much more about the inner factions and pressures and pulls that the Taliban are faced with. So they would concur only with those things they are comfortable with. So they would know more than us what is happening within the Taliban.
KT: So what you see may not necessarily be the truth. The surface—
RB: This is an analysis from a distance from a person who has retired from intelligence analysis ten years down the line.
KT: Let me put this to you. We’ve seen last week. Images of Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah talking to Anis Haqqani, talking to the Pakistani Ambassador in Kabul, and there were reports in the Western press that Abdullah and Karzai could play some sort of role in shaping a government, perhaps smoothening the way for the Taliban. Is that your understanding as well?
RB: They may have tried to give that impression but the Taliban went through the motions of engaging with them and these impressions have since been dispelled despite efforts still being made by Karzai, maybe not so much by Abdullah Abdullah, to give this impression. Because Karzai at one stage, if you recall, had been the Deputy Foreign Minister for the Mujahudeen. He fell out because his father was murdered in a Kandahar Mosque, in a plot which he believed had been hatched by the ISI.
KT: So in other words, this initial impression of last week, that Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah were playing a role in trying to shape or help the Taliban is actually one that Abdullah and Karzai were fostering. The Taliban were simply going through the polite motions of meeting former leaders as a courtesy, nothing more.
RB: Yes. Trying to give an impression to the West that maybe they are serious about having an inclusive set up. And they wouldn’t mind that if your recognition was on the way. But after that we’ve had the visit of the American CIA chief who had a direct one-to-one meeting with Mullah Baradar.
KT: And Karzai and Abdullah were not there?
RB: They were definitely not there. His guards were disarmed in the palace where he was staying, in the Presidential palace. So he had to move with his family to Abdullah’s house.
KT: What does that suggest? That move from his own house to Abdullah’s house?
RB: Insecurity. That maybe, why my guards have been disarmed…
FILE PHOTO: Civilians prepare to board a plane during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan August 18, 2021. Photo: Reuters.
KT: So that entire picture that was presented both in the Western press and the Indian press that Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah were playing a critical role was actually done more by Karzai and Abdullah to build their own image. The Taliban were simply being respectful, they were getting in touch out of politeness, because they don’t treat these people as serious.
RB: I don’t think they are going to share power easily with them.
KT: Now it’s roughly 11-12 since the Taliban came to power and they still haven’t formed a government. I know they’ve set up acting ministers—Finance, Defence, Interior—they’ve got an Acting Governor and Mayor of Kabul. They say they will only form a proper government after the 31st when foreign soldiers have left. Do you believe that? Or are there problems in forming a government and is this just an excuse?
RB: No, I think they are playing for time, for international recognition. Once they get that then they will actually declare the emirate and then the leadership council
KT: But can they get international recognition if there isn’t a government to recognise?
RB: They want to have an emirat and they’re still toying with the idea of what sort of constitution they’re going to accept. The 1964 Constitution is being held out to them as a possible compromise document.
KT: But that is a Zahir Shah Constitution.
RB: Yes. But it’s a work in progress. If they add some Islamic clauses into that—
KT: But the Zahir Shah Constitution had a kingship. Do you see the emirate becoming a kingship?
RB: No. The emirate will have to be given some recognition in whatever form, sharia law in the emirate. So that is what they are working at.
KT: So this delay in forming a government is playing for time. It’s not an indication that they are having problems.
RB: Initially that seemed to be so, but now with the announcement of these designations I would tend to agree.
KT: My last question: How seriously do you take the resistance in the Panjshir? Can Amrullah Saleh, Ahmad Shah Massoud’s son actually threaten the Taliban. Or is it only a matter of time before the Taliban vanquishes them?
RB: Yes. They cannot really threaten but surrender may not happen immediately.
KT: What about defeat?
RB: Defeat also may not happen immediately because Panjshir has always been well defended. Their capability to attack and take on more areas from where they are, that’s in dispute. That’s why the Taliban feel it’s not a serious problem.
KT: So Panjshir because of its geographical location surrounded by these mountains can defend itself, but it’s very unlikely that the resistance in Panjshir will be able to spread beyond the borders of Panjshir.
RB: There could be some political accommodation also with Ahmad Massoud because he has the sort of charisma which the Taliban may not want to totally ignore. But his deputy, the former vice-president, the acting President, Amrullah Saleh is never going to make his peace with the Taliban.
KT: We end now with me repeating to you one question: You do believe, no matter what government is formed, at the end of the day, the hand of the ISI will be there behind? Even if the Taliban find credible faces of their own, the strings will be in ISI hands?
RB: For a considerable while, yes.
KT: How long is a considerable while?
RB: Anything between six months to a year at least.
KT: But after a year, the government could begin to break free?
RB: It would depend on the safe havens, where their children are, where their families are. What they do with their properties in Pakistan. If they can have better sanctions or options available to them inside Afghanistan then—
KT: So in other words, if the world wants the Taliban to loosen the strings that attach them to the ISI, we need to find ways of helping them with their sons and their properties so they can establish independence and separation.
RB: Yes.
KT: Thank you very much indeed. This has been a comprehensive interview, you’ve given us incredible detail. I’m not sure everyone will be able to follow all of it, but for those who care, both about the history and the details of the Pakistani involvement and the ISI in particular with the Taliban, and those who also want to know who are the factions and who are the personalities within the Taliban, you’ve been like an encyclopedia.
RB: Thank you.
KT: Thank you very much indeed, Banerji. Take care, stay safe.
Karan Thapar speaks to former special secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat in charge of R&AW Rana Banerji.
In a comprehensive 45 minute interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, former special secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat in charge of R&AW Rana Banerji gives you all the details you might want about the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and the role Pakistan’s ISI played in it. Banerji’s knowledge and insights are encyclopedic. There are very few analysts and experts who know as much as he does. In just 45 minutes, you will know everything you need to understand the Pakistan link with the Taliban as well as the background and recent history of the Taliban’s top leadership, i.e. the men who now rule Afghanistan.
