Pakistan’s former intelligence head said that the country’s biggest threat is from the internal challenges.
Mohammad Asad Durrani, a retired 3-star rank general in Pakistan Army and former Director General of the ISI, who set off a storm among the intelligence circles of the region by co-authoring a book titled ‘The Spy Cronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace’ with former RAW chief A S Dulat.
Durrani has also previously served as the Director General of the Pakistan Army’s ‘Military Intelligence’.
While talking to BBC, Durrani said, “the country is facing three types of challenges: economy, political instability, and social cohesion.”
“There are some areas like Balochistan where there is unrest among people who feel politically alienated and deprived. The economy is in bad shape. The government’s credibility is bad because people believe it has been brought into power by the military,” he said.
Durrani believes that the basic threat to Pakistan has always been from the internal challenges. “India has not always been the biggest threat to us,” he said.
In his interview with BBC Urdu, he said that Pakistan on the external front, has faced new challenges in the form of rivalry involving Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran.
According to him, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey pose new challenges to his country.
Mr Durrani went on saying that military’s interference in Pakistan’s political affairs was a reality, asserting that it was detrimental to the country.
In his opinion, the changing of status of Gilgit-Baltistan will be a blow to the Kashmir cause and he opposes it. He added that “G-B should not be forcibly made a province of Pakistan.”
Both the authors of ‘The Spy Chronicles’ were supposed to release the book in India in 2018, but Mr Durrani’s visa was rejected and later he was summoned to Pakistan army’s General Headquarters to report over the book.
Durrani’s name was also put on the Exit Control List (ECL) by the Pakistani authorities. In February 2019, he was found guilty of violating Pakistani Military Code of Conduct for co-writing the book.
Asad Durrani’s second book ‘Honour Among Spies’ was published in October, 2020.