Javed Nasir
Lieutenant-General Javed Nasir (
Urdu: جاويد ناصر;b. 1936
[3]:112)
HI(M),
SBt,
PEC), is a Pakistani Islamist and retired
engineering officer who served as the
Director-General of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), appointed on 14 March 1992 until being forcefully removed from this assignment on 13 May 1993.
[5]
Known for being member of
Tablighi Jamaat, Nasir gained national prominence as his role of bringing the
unscattered mass of
Afghan Mujahideen to agree to the
power-sharing formula to form
Afghan administration under President
Mojaddedi in Afghanistan in 1992–93.
[5] Later, he played an influential and decisive role in the
Bosnian war when he oversaw the
covert military intelligence program to support the
Bosnian Army against the
Serbs, while airlifting the thousands of
Bosnian refugees in Pakistan.
[5]Biography[edit]
Javed Nasir was born in
Lahore,
Punjab in
British India in 1936,
[3]:112
[4]:834 and is of the
Kashmiri descent.
[1]:148
[2]:169 After his intermediate from Government College, Lahore, Nasir joined the
Pakistan Army and entered in the
Pakistan Military Academy at
Kakul in 1953.
[6] He decided to attend the
Military College of Engineering at
Risalpur in
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and graduated with
B.S. with
Honors in civil engineering in 1958.
[7] He gained
commissioned as
2nd-Lt. in the
Corps of Engineers of the
Pakistan Army where his career is mostly spent.
[7]
In 1967, Nasir qualified as a
licensed professional engineer (PE) by the
Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC).
[4]:834
He was known to have served in the
combat engineering formations during the
second war with India in 1965 as
army captain, and later served in the
western front of the
third war with India in 1971 as major.
[8][4]:834
After the
third war with India in 1971,
Maj. Nasir went to Australia where he attended and graduated in
staff course from the
Australian Army Staff College.
[9] In 1980s, he was sent to attend the
National Defence University (NDU) in
Islamabad, and graduated with
MSc in
Strategic studies.
[7] In 1983–90,
Major-General Nasir joined the faculty of the
Armed Forces War College of the
National Defense University (NDU), which he instructed courses on
war studies for seven years, eventually promoted as
chief instructor.
[7][10][11]
In the
military circles,
Maj-Gen. Nasir was described as a "
moderate person" who
rediscovered the
Islam in 1986 during the midst of the
Russian war in the neighboring
Afghanistan.
[1]:148–149 In 1988, Maj-Gen. Nasir gained public fame when he was appointed as inspector-general of engineering formation that investigated the
environmental disaster befall at the
military storage located in the
Rawalpindi Cantonment.
[12] Against the United States, German and French military estimation, Maj-Gen. Nasir personally led his formation at the ground to clear out the entire storage containing the
chemical and
explosive materials, as well as the
missile ordnance in mere two weeks.
[3][12]:112–113
In 1989, he was appointed as director-general of
Frontier Works Organization (FWO) and supervised the civil construction of the
Skardu International Airport that is 11,944 feet (3,641 m)
above sea level.
[3]:112 On 24 September 1991,
Maj-Gen. Nasir was promoted as a
three-star rank
army general, having appointed to command the
Corps of Engineers as its
Eng-in-C at the
Army GHQ in
Rawalpindi.
[5] On 4 February 1992,
Lieutenant-General Nasir was then posted as the chairman of the
Pakistan Ordnance Factories at
Wah in
Punjab, Pakistan, until being appointed as the
Director-General of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
[5]
Director of ISI (1992–93)[edit]
On 14 March 1992, Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif appointed
Lt-Gen Nasir as the
Director-General of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) against the recommendations and wishes of General
Asif Nawaz, then-
chief of army staff (COAS).
[13] The appointment was seen a political motive for Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif since General Nasir had no experience in the
intelligence gathering network and was virtually a ghost in country's
intelligence community.
[14][15] At that time,
Prime Minister Sharif had family relations with Lt-Gen. Nasir Javed, and knew him very well.
[2]:169
In the military, he was of the view of
anti-American sentiments, accusing the United States of using the
Islam for political reasons and against
Russians in Europe, which further complicated the
foreign relations between
two nations.
[16]:14 He also limited the cooperation between the
ISI and
CIA to fight against the
global terrorism, thwarting any joint efforts to fight against extremism.
[16][17] Though, he did help the US to relocate and retrieve the missing
guided missiles from
Afghanistan based on a mutual understanding of such weapons may have fall in wrong hands.
[18]
It was during this time when ISI had been running an intensified support for
insurgency in
Indian Kashmir.
[19] In spite of his seniority in the military, Nasir was overlooked, and was never considered for the promotion of the
four-star rank and appointment by the government during the appointmentment process for the command of the
Army, the
Chief of Army Staff (COAS).
[18] Lt-Gen Nasir was among the five senior and superseding army generals when the junior-most
Lt-Gen Abdul Waheed Kakar was elevated to the four-star rank and promotion to command the army.
[18]
Peshawar Accord and Mojaddedi administration[edit]
Main articles:
History of Afghanistan (1992–present) and
Peshawar Accord
On April 1992,
Lt-Gen. Nasir became an international figure when he played major role in amalgamating the
unscattered Afghan mujahideen groups when the
power-sharing formula was drafted.
[5] Due to his
religiosity, Nasir used his persuasive power and motivational talks to agree to
power-sharing formula and, witnessed to have successfully establishing an
Afghan administration under cleric President
Sibghatullah Mojaddedi in
Kabul.
[5]
Bosnian war[edit]
See also:
Inter-Services Intelligence activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Bosnian mujahideen, and
Bosnians in Pakistan
In the military and political circles, Nasir had a reputation to be a practising Muslim who would not compromise on the interests of Islam and Pakistan. In 1992–93, Nasir defied the UN arms embargo placed on
Bosnia and Herzegovina when he successfully airlifted the
POF's sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles, which ultimately turned the tide in favour of Bosnian Muslims and forced the Serbs to lift the siege much to the annoyance of the
U.S. government.
[5][20] While airlifting sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles to Bosnian Muslims, he pushed the
Government of Pakistan to allow the
Bosnian to immigration Pakistan.
[21]
In 2011, the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia demanded the custody of the former ISI director for his alleged support of the
Inter-Services Intelligence activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to Muslim fighters of Bosnia against the Serbian army in the 1990s, the Government of Pakistan has refused to hand Nasir to the UN tribunal, citing poor health.
Removal from the ISI[edit]
In 1993, Lt-Gen. Nasir's zealous religiosity and maverick actions became embarrassing for the
Pakistani military, in which, the
Chairman joint chiefs General
Shamim Allam had completely lost the control of the
ISI when the agency was running under Nasir's command.
[22]:26 General
Abdul Waheed Kakar, the
army chief at that time, had been at odds with Lt-Gen. Nasir due to his preaching of Islamic tradition in the military.
[18] In the views of senior military officers in the
Pakistani military and the civilian officials of the
Ministry of Defense, Lt-Gen. Nasir was often a figure of fun whose intellect was far from being as outstanding as his white beard.
[23]
During this time, the
Indian government led by Prime Minister
P. V. Narasimha Rao levelled several accusations against him of supporting the
Khalistan movement, the
Indian Mafia and
Dawood Ibrahim– the accusations he swiftly denied in 2008.
[22]:26–27 At home, Nasir began facing accusations from
Pakistan Peoples Party politicians of supporting the conservative Islamic agenda in the country.
[5]
In 1993, the United States formally registered their complaints to Pakistan when U.S. secretary of State
James Baker written a memo to Prime Minister Sharif of putting his country on a terror watch list and was in danger of being listed as terror-supporting nation.
[22]:27–28 Responding to the complaint, Prime Minister Sharif used diplomacy when he sent his
Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan and
Pakistan Senator Akram Zaki to United States of assuring Pakistan's policy of not supporting the militancy in the region.
[22]:27–28
During this time, several
Arab countries such as
Egypt,
Tunisia,
Algeria, and the
Philippines, lodged a strong protest against Nasir of supporting the radical movements in their respected countries.
[24]:152
[25]
Following the resignations of Prime Minister Sharif and President
G.I. Khan on 18 July 1993, the caretaker Prime Minister
M.A. Qureshi fired and sacked Nasir from the directorship of the ISI, and
Acting President Wasim Sajjad approved his premature retirement from his
military commission effective from on 13 May 1993
[26]:170— he only led the ISI for 13 months.
[27]
Upon Nasir dismissal, the new DG ISI,
J.A. Qazi eventually led the massive arrests of thousands of
Arab Afghans and forced the
al-Qaeda to relocate itself in
Afghanistan permanently.
[28]:147–149 Expulsion from Pakistan, many escaped to
Bosnia to
participate in the war.
[28]:149 According to many political commentators and journalists, Nasir's firing from ISI was not at the behest of the United States but, it was the friendly
Arab countries' protests and pressure at the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that resulted in his departure from ISI and the retirement from his 40-year long
service with the military.
[26]:170
Later life[edit]
After his premature retirement, Nasir became a
missionary for a
Tablighi Jamaat, and went to the
private sector where he managed and chaired the
private equity firm and
hedge fund, the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), when he was appointed on 14 July 1997 for a two-year contract.
[26]:171
[29]
In 1998, he was appointed as chairman of
Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, a
pro-Sikhism organization in Pakistan promoting the religious activities of
Sikhism.
[30]:408 On October 1998, Prime Minister Sharif appointed him as his intelligence adviser but this appointment remained for short period of time.
[30]:408 For sometime, he served on the security details as head of security for the
Sharif family, but the
PML(N)'s lawmakers and Sharif family cut off their links and distanced themselves from Nasir after the
9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.
[31]
In 2002–03, Nasir filed a lawsuit at the
Anti Terrorism Court against the media corporations: the
Daily Jang, and the
News International, for
character defamation when investigative articles published on him regarding monetary embezzlement when he managed the private hedge fund in Lahore.
[32]
In 2008, he appeared on the
Geo News and denied any allegations of terror-supporting that was levelled on him during his time as Director ISI, when interviewed by
Iftikhar Ahmad.
[18] At this detailed and hour-long interview, he was of the view of
9/11 was an inside job, and maintained on his stance on the suppressing of the
free-energy by the
U.S. and
Pakistan Government.
[18]
In 2011, the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia demanded the custody of Nasir for his alleged authorization of the
covert program to support to the
Bosnian Army against the Serbian army in 1990s, the Government of Pakistan refused to hand Nasir to the UN tribunal, citing poor health and
memory loss due to a road accident.
[33]
In 2013, Nasir reportedly spoke against Afghan Taliban and the terrorism at the Supreme Court convention, and criticised the
Taliban as an armed violent group and criticised them of supporting the violent terrorism for their cause, in a response to the
church bombing.
[31]
