The Pakistani security official said when the ISI was under the control of the prime minister, “it did not comply with any orders”.

“How is it possible that it will now work unquestioningly under the interior minister,” the official was quoted as saying in the media.

He said a debate had been going on for several years that all intelligence agencies, including the ISI, should work under Pakistan’s civilian set-up so that they could be held accountable to the people.

A former caretaker interior minister, Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Nawaz, said that all agencies previously used to work under the President of the country and there was a time when all agencies were answerable to the ISI.

He said the decision would not bring about any “qualitative change” in the performance of the agencies. In theory, though, both the agencies would now be answerable to the Prime Minister’s advisor on interior matters, he added.

ISI: a brief history

•The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the largest and most powerful intelligence service in Pakistan. It is one of the three main branches of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.

• After the poor performance of Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (MI) during Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 the need for a separate intelligence body was keenly felt. ISI was therefore created as an independent unit in 1948 from the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which handled intelligence sharing between different branches of the military.

• The ISI was structured to be manned by officers from the three main military services, and to specialise in collection, analysis and assessment of external intelligence. The ISI was the brainchild of Australian-born British Army officer, Major General R. Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pakistan Army.

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