Major General ® Ihtisham Zamir Jafri passed away in Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Rawalpindi on 04 May, 2015. He was admitted to hospital after suffering burns from an unfortunate accident at home. Ihtisham was a fine officer and gentleman well liked by his peers.
Ihtisham was from Rawalpindi and alumni of Military College Jhelum and Gordon College. He joined 47th course Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul. He was commissioned in 20 Frontier Force (FF) Regiment. In his military career, he served at different command, staff and instructional positions. He commanded his own 20 FF battalion, a brigade in Okara and a division in Karachi. He served at the faculty of Command and Staff College Quetta and Military Operations Directorate.
His most important assignment was when he was Deputy Director of Internal Security wing of Counter Intelligence (CI) section of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) from 2001 to 2003. In the aftermath of 11 September, 2001, relation between ISI and CIA was revived on an urgent basis. Ihtisham as DDG Internal Security played an important role in the capture of many high profile foreign terrorists. He was clear in his mind about the threat faced by Pakistan and at that time period ISI was operating in full gear against al-Qaeda. Robert Grenier was then CIA station chief of Islamabad. Deputy station chief was an old Afghan hand with firsthand knowledge of the region and he made a great team with Ihtisham. All the technical data collected by CIA from a variety of sources about specific targets was shared with ISI team in Islamabad. This was then passed on to the provincial heads of ISI in each province. Local intelligence teams further investigated, initiated surveillance and then conducted raids to arrest culprits.
This good relationship that lasted for a short period was due to the fact that at that time United States was only interested in al-Qaeda and focus was only on foreign fighters. Any local fish caught in the net were simply handed over to Pakistanis to take care of them while foreigners were transported o Bagram air base with onward journey to Guantanamo Bay prison. American foot print in Afghanistan was limited to few dozen CIA paramilitary and Special Forces troops and Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba were somewhere in future. In his memoirs, Grenier didn’t use Ihtisham’s name due to personal security risk but now that Ihtisham has left the world, he doesn’t need to be anonymous. Grenier used a pseudo name of “Imran Zaman” using initials of I for Ihtesham and Z for Zamir.
The most controversial part of Ihtisham’s career was his role in referendum and elections of 2002. Internal security wing of ISI and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) were used By General Pervez Mussharraf for his political objectives. In newly elected assembly, army sponsored political party needed support of renegade members of other parties. The article of the constitution that prohibited floor crossing remained suspended to allow renegade members of other parties to vote for government. When asked, information minister responded that this was allowed so that members can vote according to their conscience. In Urdu the word for conscience is ‘Zamir’. The witty Maulana Fazlu Rahman quipped that ‘this is not the case and members are voting not on the voice of ‘Zamir’ (conscience) but General Zamir”. Ihtesham being a witty person remembered this and later when he started to write columns in Urdu, he titled one column ‘Zamir Ki Awaz’ (voice of conscience) when commenting about a later vote in parliament.
Ihtisham was son of a famous poet and satirist Syed Zamir Jafri and he inherited the sense of humor and wit from his father. Many who served with him during his long military career noticed that even during most trying and difficult times, Ihtisham didn’t lose his sense of humor.
Ihtesham suffered a great personal tragedy in January 2014, when his 32 year old young son suddenly died. However, he endured this loss with his usual self and continued on. He is remembered by his colleagues and loved ones.
Rest in peace Ihtisham.
