‘Directorate S’ is the title of your second book about the Afghanistan wars, covering the period from 9/11 to the present day. What is this murky outfit?
It’s what the Americans call the covert action arm of the ISI, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, that worked with the Taliban and Kashmiri groups and thwarted American ambitions in Afghanistan by fostering the Taliban’s comeback, particularly after 2004. It used a lot of layered, deniable individuals and networks and foundations to try to keep the Pakistani state distant from this effort but there was, I think, no doubt that it was a policy commanded by the top leadership of the Pakistani army.
The Pakistani president and the head of ISI were all involved?
