Imran Khan visits ISI HQ on day of blast outside Hafiz Saeed residence

(This story originally appeared in on Jun 24, 2021)

Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan visited on Wednesday the headquarters of the country’s powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) where he was briefed about the prevailing security situation in the country and region.

Khan’s visit to the ISI HQ was preplanned but it coincided with an explosion outside the residence of Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed in Lahore. Khan was accompanied by interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, information minister Fawad Chaudhry, and the heads of the Services Intelligence Agencies, Intelligence Bureau and Federal Investigation Agency.

Khan has been regularly meeting military leaders, including the ISI chief, for briefings on security issues. Some meetings are shared with the media, while others remain secret.

The ISI chief, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, received the PM at the agency’s secretariat. “A special meeting of the recently established National Intelligence Coordination Committee (NIC) was chaired by PM Imran Khan at the ISI Secretariat Islamabad,” read a statement issued by the prime minister’s office.

The NIC, a platform for intelligence coordination and cooperation for unified national intelligence assessment was notified by the government on January 22 this year. “A comprehensive briefing was given to the civilian and military leadership on the regional and national security situation,” the statement read.