NBC quotes South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz on Pakistan’s new intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Rizwan Akhtar:
““Its good news that a professional soldier and not someone from the intel branch has been brought to the ISI,” said Shuja Nawaz of the Washington-based Atlantic Council.
“However, the ISI’s size is so large — larger than any other military command at his rank — that it cannot be controlled down to the lowest levels.”
While the military’s rank-and-file incur heavy losses in the militant-prone border areas, there have been instances of soldiers turning on their own. Assassination attempts in 2004 on a former president, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, involved military personnel, for example.
And earlier this month, a failed mutiny by navy personnel inspired by militant Islam almost led to a naval frigate being hijacked.
So Akhtar’s got a big job ahead of him, according to Nawaz.
“That’s going to his biggest operational challenge: Will he succeed in controlling this institution where his predecessors have failed?”