ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's eight-month-old civilian government has disbanded the political wing of the military intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to concentrate its focus on counter-terrorism, the foreign minister said yesterday.
The support and co-operation of Pakistan's ISI directorate is regarded as vital to the West in fighting the threat of al-Qaeda globally, and defeating the Taliban insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan.
But critics call it a "state within a state", and Pakistan's civilian leaders have regularly accused its political wing of involvement in the overthrow of governments. Neighbouring Afghanistan and India view the ISI with distrust.
Foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the ISI's political wing had been disbanded, and described it as a "positive development".
"ISI is a precious national institution and it wants to focus fully on counter-terrorism activities," the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan quoted him as saying. - (Reuters)