Military rejects speculation about ISI chief.

Byline: Baqir Sajjad Syed

ISLAMABAD -- Military spokesman Maj Gen Iftikhar Babar on Monday said Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Faiz Hameed is not being changed in the near future.

He was speaking at a media briefing at the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on the four years of Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad, which was launched in 2017 to consolidate the gains made in the long military campaign against terrorism.

There has recently been some intense speculation that Gen Hameed is being transferred from ISI. Some have even tipped former ISPR chief Lt Gen Asif Ghafoor, who is currently serving as inspector general communications and information technology at General Headquarters, as the next spymaster.

It was also being said that the ISI chief would be changed soon after the Senate elections scheduled for March 3.

While rejecting this speculation as 'baseless', Maj Gen Babar stressed that in the military the 'appointments at the senior level are not short-lived'.

The spokesman said normally the tenure of a head of an institution was two years.

Gen Hameed was posted as DG ISI in June 2019. He had replaced Lt Gen Asim Muneer, who remained ISI chief for nearly eight months. The appointment of the ISI's DG is the prerogative of the prime minister. The spymaster's choice is, however, made by the prime minister in consultation with the army chief.

Gen Babar advised against further speculation on the change of ISI chief.

Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad

Hailing the operation against terrorism and extremism as a great success, the military spokesman said: 'Frequency of terrorist incidents, the intensity (of the attacks), terrorists' capacity to execute attacks, their infrastructure, and support base has been dented significantly.'

'We have come a long way, but still a lot of ground has to be covered,' Gen Babar said, highlighting the need for unity in tackling future challenges.

The military, with the support of intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies, undertook as many as 375,000 intelligence-based operations (IBOs) even against terrorist sleeper cells in the four years. Some 150,000 IBOs were conducted in Sindh, 92,000 in Balochistan, about 80,000 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and nearly 34,000 in Punjab.

Some 353 terrorists were killed during these...