Govt transfers ISI’s internal wing chief Maj Gen Faisal Naseer to Nacta

AI Summary

The Pakistani government transferred Major General Faisal Naseer, head of ISI’s Internal Wing, to become the National Coordinator of Nacta, Pakistan's central counter-terrorism authority. This move is significant ahead of military promotions and may indicate an effort to strengthen Nacta’s role in counter-terrorism coordination.

ISLAMABAD: The government, in a surprise move on Friday, transferred Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General (C) Major General Faisal Naseer and appointed him National Coordinator of the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta). The DG (C) post is often mistakenly described as heading ISI’s counter-intelligence wing. The office actually heads the agency’s Internal Wing, which deals with domestic security and political matters and, because of the nature of the assignment, frequently engages with the country’s principal power centres. Within the ISI, DG (C) is considered virtually the second most important position after that of the ISI director general. Maj Gen Naseer’s transfer is being seen as particularly significant because it comes ahead of the upcoming promotions in the army. An officer from the Corps of Military Intelligence, he was considered a strong candidate for elevation to the rank of lieutenant general. He served as DG (C) from 2022, shortly after his promotion to the rank of major general, and remained in the position through a politically turbulent period. The transfer to Nacta has consequently left many observers surprised. In the military’s conventional career progression, an officer moved out of an active military assignment is generally considered to have diminished prospects for further promotion, although exceptions have occurred. Nacta, established in 2009 and subsequently given statutory backing under the Nacta Act of 2013, was conceived as the country’s central civilian body for coordinating counter-terrorism and counter-extremism policies among federal and provincial agencies. In practice, however, the authority has never fully evolved into the command and coordination body envisaged under the law and has largely remained a policy secretariat with limited capacity to enforce decisions across the country’s sprawling security and law enforcement apparatus. The authority has also seen frequent changes at the top, with more than a dozen National Coordinators since its inception, most of them drawn from the police service. Maj Gen Naseer’s appointment therefore marks a departure from the usual practice and could potentially signal an attempt to give greater weight to an institution that has long struggled to establish itself as the central coordinating mechanism for the fight against terrorism and violent extremism. The government did not immediately explain the rationale for the change.