QUETTA, Pakistan—In the late eighties two junior intelligence officers one Pakistani other Indian faced each other on opposite sides of the law.
The Pakistani intelligence officer had caught the Indian agent on Pakistani soil with incriminating evidence. Indian agent knew his life had come to an end. However, everything has a price. And his freedom was worth a little less than half a million rupees.
A few days later the Indian agent was sitting back at home, free as a bird. And life went on for several more years until the fateful year of 1994 when the two old “chaps” met again. This time officially. The Indian agent had climbed the ladder to an important post in the government. At this side of the border the junior Pakistani agent, against all odds had become one of the top bosses at Federal Investigation Agency. Of course, this was the infamous Rehman Malik. (See: Pakistan’s Zionist Security Advisor).
The Indian side wanted Pakistani Government’s help in reducing cross-border terrorism. But Rehman Malik offered a lot more than mere reduction in “cross-border” activity.
He had been appointed as Additional Director FIA and yielded immense power in the country. Additionally he had become the right-hand-man of Asif Ali Zardari, stashing his looted money all over the world.
Malik offered the Indians direct access to the jihadists he would capture.
Somewhere along the line Israel also became a party to the deal and soon Mossad agents were carrying out investigations of the captured (ISI backed) jihadists on Pakistani soil. There were millions to be made from the deal and of course Rehman Malik was working in tandem with this immediate boss Ghulam Asghar, head of the FIA and under the auspices of Asif Ali Zardari.
ISI, Pakistan Military and top brass quietly kept a close watch. Although painful but capture of a few foot soldiers was bearable in the bigger national interest.
By 1995, in a little over a year the, Benazir Bhutto government had expelled 2000 Arab mujahideen of the Afghan-Soviet War and imprisoned a number of Pakistani mujahideen. More significantly, Benazir Bhutto on her official visit to the US in April 1995 met in secret with an Israeli delegation. On her return she faced stiff resistance from a segment of civilian and military bureaucracy. Her meetings with India and Israel had generated great suspicions. Just four months later she thwarted a coup attempt against her headed by Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi. Director General of Military Intelligence Major General Ali Kuli Khan tipped-off General Abdul Waheed Kakar who immediately ordered Chief of General Staff Lt. General Jehangir Karamat to suppress the coup. A total of 36 army officers and 20 civilians were arrested from Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Then in November 1995 the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad was blown up in a car bomb. Al-Qaeda was quick to claim it. Although the real reasons of the handlers of the bombers remain hidden to this day, but in the following days a silent but significant event happened. General Abdul Waheed Kakar who was given an extension in his tenure declined it and Lt. General Jehangir Karamat was appointed as the Army Chief by the then President Farooq Leghari on 18 December, 1995.
Lt. General Jehangir Karamat was the senior most general at the time, therefore the least controversial within the military – something which the military desperately needed at the time. The other three generals who were in the position to become COAS were Lt. Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, Lt. Gen Naseer Akhtar, and Lt Gen Mohammad Tariq.
Lt. Gen. Ghulam Muhammad Malik had already retired in October 1995. Maj. Gen. Naseem Rana was heading the ISI at the time, taking his charge in October 1995. Lt. Gen. Shujat Ali Khan was heading the ISI’s Internal Wing.
In the backdrop of these events in Pakistan, in March 1995 Israel’s Air Force chief had visited India with an entourage that included key Mossad officials. It was at this point that in a meeting Pakistan’s nuclear program was discussed. A year later Indian nuclear and missile program head Abdul Kalam had a “top secret” visit to Israel in June 1996.
It was “top secret” because no one knew about it. As it turned out, everyone knew about it even before he left India. All the much publicized secrecy and visit of such a top level official achieved the aim and nearly nobody bothered with the entourage which included a manager from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) – Alok Tiwari. The “top secret” meetings between Abdul Kalam and his Israeli counterparts were related to purchase of UAVs. However, in every single one of those “top secret” meetings Alok Tiwari was missing. With all the attention focused on Abdul Kalam and his “top secret” meetings no one noticed the odd thing.
Just a few days later, after coming back to India Tiwari accompanied Air Chief Marshal S. K. Sareen to Israel in July 1996. In fact this was his third trip. He had also visited Israel in April 1996 along with India’s first Defense Attaché to Israel.
