A recent flurry of interviews to TV channels by ex-ISI operative and ex-IB chief Brigadier (Retd) Imtiaz Ahmad Billa — at his urging — has caused discomfort in a lot of quarters. Brig Billa’s “disclosures” are flying in all directions, indicating that the old spy has once again not employed his brains while strategising his public appearances after having languished in jail for eight years.

Brig Billa has turned out to be the proverbial loose cannon. In fact, if someone wants to give an example of how a not too well intellectually endowed person can shoot all over the place, he is the perfect reference. Known for his loyalty to the PMLN leader Mr Nawaz Sharif, he has criminally mistimed his “absolution” of the MQM from the Jinnahpur charge at a time when the PMLN was crossing swords with the MQM in parliament.

Clearing himself of the role he played in Operation Midnight Jackals against the PPP government, he has offended ex-army chief Aslam Beg and ex-ISI chief Hamid Gul too. Both had painstakingly removed from themselves the stigma of having toppled an elected government when the people are being told by Brig Billa that they had put him up to it. In a TV discussion he has admitted that he was “partly” wrong in hating the PPP government!

He thought the Jinnahpur “disclosure” would not go against “his leader” Mr Sharif, but it has done exactly that. Tuesday night, on a TV discussion, he actually had a spat with Khwaja Muhammad Asif of the PMLN and ended up threatening him with public disclosures about Mr Asif’s person.

In the course of the discussion that followed, Brig Billa ended up blackening the name of the ISI too. Tough verdicts were passed on ISI officers who were a permanent danger to democracy because their view of state security was an in-house concept that had nothing to do with the security of the people of Pakistan.

Brigadier (Retd) Imtiaz Ahmad Billa has caused a ‘get Nawaz’ conspiracy theory to raise its head. If this is not what he wanted — and we don’t know the truth — he has done exactly that because of his lack of intellectual gifts. God save us if there are more like him in the army. (Daily Times)

Ex-ISI officials come out with new versions on MQM operation

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer Major (r) Nadeem Dar claimed on Wednesday he had recovered maps of Jinnahpur from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) headquarters, a private TV channel reported. Meanwhile, former ISI director general Lt Gen Asad Durrani told another private channel then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan had ordered an end to the military operation against the MQM to deny political mileage to the Pakistan People’s Party.

Dar told the channel he had personally recovered the Jinnahpur maps from Nine-Zero during the 1992 military operation in Karachi. This contradicts claims by Brigadier (r) Imtiaz, who had claimed that he had informed then premier Nawaz Sharif there were no maps of Jinnahpur. Separately, Durrani told a channel the government was informed about every step of the military operation against the MQM. He claimed the MQM-Haqiqi had also supported the military in the operation. He alleged the 1992 military operation had been launched for ulterior motives and Jinnahpur had been used as a scapegoat. (Daily Times)

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