Did ex-ISI chief scuttle Musharraf's Kandahar visit?

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, OCT. 10. Was the decision of the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to replace the chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Lt.Gen. Mehmood Ahmed, amid the fast-changing scenario in the wake of the September 11 attacks, a routine change or was it something more serious?

Gen. Musharraf sought to explain the replacement that coincided with the first air raids by the U.S. and U.K. forces on Afghanistan as a matter unrelated to Afghanistan but doubts persisted.

The English daily, The News, in a front-page report today sought to establish that the transfer of the ``super spymaster'' was very much related to the Kabul developments. Among other things, it charged the former ISI chief, with effectively preventing Gen. Musharraf from interacting with the top brass of the Taliban in the last several months.

The paper said that Lt.Gen. Ahmed became a victim of `over- ambition'. He was accused of trying to `outmanoeuvre' his seniors to grab the number two slot in the Army and prevented, Gen. Musharraf from visiting Kandahar to prevail on the Taliban chief, Mullah Omar, to close down Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda camps.

On his return home from the U.S. last month, he is said to have `misbehaved' with almost all the key military and civil aides to Gen. Musharraf. Lt.Gen. Ahmed was on an official visit during the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. He stayed on to interact with U.S. officials to discuss the crackdown on the Taliban.

He also refused to accept Gen. Musharraf's offer to become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and tried to influence the President to change his mind through common friends.

Quoting sources, the paper said that Lt.Gen. Ahmed, opposed Gen. Musharraf's Kandahar visit by arguing that the President should travel to Kandahar only after the ISI had prepared the ground for him''. He persuaded the President to approve the visit of Interior Minister, Lt.Gen. (retd.) Moinuddin Haider, to meet Mulla Omar. Lt.Gen. Haider's meeting however did not yield many results.

Lt.Gen. Ahmed was considered close to Gen. Musharraf when he arrested the then Prime Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif. Along with Lt.Gen. Ahmed, Gen. Muzzafar Hussain Usmani, Deputy Chief of the Army, who played a key role in the military coup was also sidelined. Both are reported to have sought premature retirement as a mark of protest.

In a related development the Pakistan Foreign Office has denied reports circulated by an Indian news agency that the former ISI chief was linked with a militant released by the Indian Government in exchange for the freedom of the passengers on board the Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu in December 1999.

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