Intelligence Bureau (Pakistan)

Intelligence Bureau (IB) is Pakistan's main domestic/internal intelligence and espionage agency. It functions under direct control of Chief Executive of Pakistan - either Prime Minister or the President. The IB's tasks include counter-intelligence and internal Security matters.

The current Director-General is Aftab Sultan.

Powers
Although the agency has no formal arrest powers, suspects are often arrested and detained by law enforcement agencies at the request of IB officials. In 1996, the IB was granted control of government censorship programs, controlling information dissemination via mail, wire, or electronic medium.

From 1990s, the agency remained actively involved to curb Sectarian violence in Pakistan. After 9/11, it also played its role as a stakeholder of the Government of Pakistan in the War on Terror.

The agency had also been blamed for its belligerent role in Operation Clean-up at Karachi in 1991-92 and 1994-96.

The IB is considered to be a main tool of the government to pacify opposition elements and is sometimes viewed as a government toppling machine. One case under discussion in the Supreme Court of Pakistan is for the alleged involvement of the agency in destabilising the Punjab Government in 2008.

History
The existence of IB predates the creation of Pakistan, as it was a part of the pre-war Intelligence Bureau of British India, and the present day IB was created from elements given to Pakistan upon independence. It was initially the main Pakistani Agency, with responsibility for strategic and foreign intelligence, as well as counter-espionage and domestic affairs. Its performance in the 1948 war was however considered less than exemplary due to the fact that the pre-independence Bureau was concerned with internal security matters, and was not set up for foreign intelligence collection. As a result, after the war, a new agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was created, and it took over the strategic and foreign intelligence roles. This is the supreme agency in Pakistan.

List of martyred IB officers in operational duties

 * 1) 1993 - Abdul Latif Baloch
 * 2) 1994 - Kareem Chaudhry
 * 3) 1994 - Afzal Rajpoot
 * 4) 1995 - Haseem ud Din Rana
 * 5) 1996 - Habibullah
 * 6) 2007 - Bait Ullah Khan Mehsud, Assistant Director
 * 7) 2008 - Ibrahim
 * 8) 2008 - Fazl ur Rehman
 * 9) 2008 - Abdul Kabir, Assistant Director
 * 10) 2009 - Tanveer Raza, Inspector
 * 11) 2010 - Abdullah Jan Tareen, Inspector
 * 12) 2010 - Nisar, Director
 * 13) 2010 - Pervaiz Malik, Assistant Director
 * 14) 2010 - Kashif khan
 * 15) 2011 - Hassan Raza
 * 16) 2011 - Alam Khan, Sub Inspector
 * 17) 2011 - Abdul Razzaq, Inspector
 * 18) 2011 - Siraj, Deputy Director
 * 19) 2012 - Qamar Raza, Inspector
 * 20) 2012 - Bashir Khan, Inspector
 * 21) 2012 - Arshad Ghayas, Assistant Sub Inspector
 * 22) 2013 - Muhammad Ali, Sub-Inspector

List of IB chiefs

 * 1) Maj Gen (R) Talat Munir, - October 2002
 * 2) Col (R) Bashir Wali Mohmand, October 2002 - February 2004
 * 3) Brig (R) Ijaz Shah, February 2004 - March 2008
 * 4) Tariq Ahmed Lodhi, March 2008-August 2008
 * 5) Shoaib Suddle, August 2008 - May 2009
 * 6) Javed Noor, May 2009 - October 2011
 * 7) Aftab Sultan, October 2011 - July 2012
 * 8) Akhter Hussain Gorchani, July 2012 -March 2013
 * 9) Wadood Shah, March 2013 - June 2013
 * 10) Aftab Sultan, June 2013 - present

Books

 * Jaffrelot, Christophe. A History of Pakistan and Its Origins. Translated by Gillian Beaumont. New York: Anthem Press, 2002.
 * Jones, Owen Bennett. Pakistan: Eye of the Storm. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
 * Ziring, Lawrence. Pakistan in the Twentieth Century: A Political History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Periodicals

 * Gauhar, Altaf. "How Intelligence Agencies Run Our Politics". The Nation. September 1997: 4.