Former spymaster Brig (r) Imtiaz Ahmed dies

ISLAMABAD: Brigadier (r) Imtiaz Ahmed, whose name became synonymous with covert political interventions in the country by the establishment, died on Wednesday night at CMH Rawalpindi after a prolonged illness.

Known popularly as ‘Brigadier Bila’, a nickname that struck fear and intrigue in political circles during the turbulent 1980s and early 1990s, Brig Ahmed played a pivotal role in shaping — and, in many cases, subverting — Pakistan’s fragile democratic landscape. Rising through the ranks of the army to the rank of brigadier, Ahmed was inducted into the ISI. There, during the years of the Afghan jihad, he worked closely with key architects of Pakistan’s covert support for the Afghan resistance against the Soviet forces.

Later, he was appointed as head of the Intelligence Bureau (IB). Under his leadership, the IB played an aggressive role in monitoring political opponents, wiretapping journalists, compiling dossiers on dissenters and orchestrating media campaigns.

During this period, Brig Ahmed became a close confidante of Nawaz Sharif. However, during Nawaz Sharif’s second term, Brig Ahmed found himself sidelined and later became openly critical of Nawaz Sharif in both private and public commentary.

Brig Ahmed also drew controversy for allegedly preparing highly intrusive intelligence reports on the private lives of prominent politicians and political workers. During his years in intelligence, he was accused of authoring damaging reports targeting opposition leaders — most notably Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari — fueling smear campaigns and state-sponsored efforts to undermine civilian rivals.

In a conversation with this correspondent years ago, Brig Ahmed once remarked with a knowing smile: “I was a spy whose methods no one could ever quite decipher.”

For much of the 1980s and early 1990s, ‘Brig Bila’s’ name haunted political activists and journalists. He was widely believed to be behind surveillance and coercion campaigns targeting the PPP and the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD).

His name figured prominently in two of the most notorious episodes in Pakistan’s political history: Operation Midnight Jackal, a failed 1989 plot to topple Benazir Bhutto’s government via a no-confidence vote engineered with covert inducements to lawmakers; and the Mehran Bank Scandal (Asghar Khan Case).

Brig Ahmed’s fall came during Benazir Bhutto’s second term in the mid-1990s, when the PPP government arrested him on charges of corruption and abuse of authority. He was convicted, imprisoned for a time, and later released.

In his later years, Brig Ahmed had expressed the desire to write his memoirs — a tell-all account of Pakistan’s intelligence wars and political intrigues. However, during a previous PPP government, after briefly re-emerging in public view during a high-profile court case, he abruptly withdrew from public life. It remains unknown whether that manuscript was ever completed.

Brigadier (r) Imtiaz Ahmed will be laid to rest today (Thursday) at Islamabad’s H-11 graveyard.