Which Intelligence agency is more powerful at the moment, Pakistan's ISI or India's RAW?

[daytrader]

With the recent killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, RAW is displaying its Global outreach whereas ISI has been busy getting Pakistan's internal affairs in order. At the moment where do things stand when comparing the two?

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI); is the largest and best-known component of the Pakistani intelligence community. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant to Pakistan's national security. The ISI reports to its director-general and is primarily focused on providing intelligence to the Pakistani government.

The agency gained global recognition and fame in the 1980s when it backed the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War in the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Over the course of the conflict, the ISI worked in close coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and the Secret Intelligence Service of the United Kingdom to run Operation Cyclone, a program to train and fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan with support from China, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim nations.

India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is the country’s premier intelligence agency. Established to satisfy the need for increased intelligence that was identified during the 1962 Sino-Indian Border War and during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, RAW was created in 1968 to handle India’s external intelligence affairs.

Currently, RAW operates under the Prime Minster’s Office, and was intentionally established as a “wing” versus an “agency” in order to bypass agency reporting requirements to Parliament’s Right to Information Act. Accordingly, it is hard to find detailed information about the organization.

Since its inception, RAW is credited with providing intelligence support to many significant operations on foreign soil. However, as with all of India’s intelligence organizations, RAW is not without flaws. RAW is known for not working in cooperation with the Intelligence Bureau or other Indian intelligence agencies. This lack of cooperation and coordination has led to multiple inquiries into RAW’s true analytic capabilities and their overall relevance to the protection of Indian interests.

 

[MenInG]

To be honest both do bidding for their masters

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Obviously its going to be an ISI which is way better than RAW because of their extensive real world experience in warfare which makes them superior to any other Intelligence Agencies.

If you don't trust my words so u can ask Kalbhushan Yadav

 

[Kaptan]

Ofcourse ISI. They along with some help from Pak army destroyed Imran Khan. Elected PM of a nuclear armed country.

Such is the power of ISI. RAW will never be able to do this in India.

 

[MenInG]

Ofcourse ISI. They along with some help from Pak army destroyed Imran Khan. Elected PM of a nuclear armed country.

Such is the power of ISI. RAW will never be able to do this in India.

All depends on what was the reason for ISI vs RAW

 

[daytrader]

Two RAW agents held in Islamabad: police
Operation was conducted at hideout near Green Belt Pahari when 2 suspects were exchanging directions, information passed by RAW, sources say

ISLAMABAD: In an intelligence-based joint operation, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) and Federal Capital Police have hunted down two agents of the Indian spy agency RAW and recovered explosive material with arms, ammunition and suspicious documents from their possession, the police said Saturday.

The daylight operation was conducted at a hideout near Green Belt Pahari (hill), located at the Islamabad Expressway, when the two suspects were exchanging directions or information passed by RAW, sources added.

The CTD has registered a first information report (FIR) under sections 7 ATA, 120/B PPC, 4/5 of ESA and 13-29-65 of AO and shifted the alleged RAW agents to an unknown place for investigation, the CTD said.

A joint team of CTD and police, upon receiving information from intelligence agencies, were on surveillance of the suspects. The two bike riding suspects appeared from Rawalpindi and stopped near Khanna Pahari when the CTD and police commandos arrested them and shifted them to CTD police station after recovering more than one kilogram (1,050 gram) of explosive material with detonators, 3 feet prima cord, two sophisticated guns (China made Norinco used in shooting at Benazir Bhutto on 27th of December, 2007) and ammunition, said the FIR.

Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) was called to collect explosive material and other relevant evidence, the sources said and added that the BDS has sent a sample of explosive and other material for chemical examination.

The people engaged in the investigation of the case, said that the RAW agents, identified as Mueez Ahmad, son of Rab Nawaz, and Mehran Younas, son of Mohammad Younas, both hailing from Gujar Khan, during the preliminary investigation confessed that they were paid agents of Indian spy agency and hit their targets mentioned by RAW, including political, social and religious personalities, adding that RAW funds them through unknown sources before mentioning the targets.

Two RAW agents held in Islamabad: police

ISLAMABAD: In an intelligence-based joint operation, the Counter Terrorism Department and Federal Capital Police have hunted down two agents of the Indian spy agency RAW and recovered explosive...

www.thenews.com.pk

 

[Bhaijaan]

RAW is just warming up now.
Arguably the top spy agency in the world right now.

 

[daytrader]

RAW has always been influential in thr region and it's advantage has always been to operate from the shadows.

The Canada incident has put a new spotlight on the agency as it's the first time the Indian Agency has been linked to an assassination on foreign soil.

 

[Technics 1210]

RAW? Pull the other one.

RAW legged it from Afghanistan the moment Biden instructed his military to.

RAW was created to stand against ISI too! This is a documented fact, in the 60s off memory.

RAW agents get caught in Canada, and China, and Pakistan - the tea is always fantastic.

 

[happydavy]

Shahid Latif, Mastermind of 2016 Pathankot Attack, Shot Dead in Pakistan's Sialkot - News18

Shahid Latif had been operating in Jammu and Kashmir until he was arrested and subsequently deported in 2010 after spending 16 years in Indian jails.

news18.com

Shahid Latif, India’s most-wanted terrorist and mastermind of 2016 Pathankot attack, shot dead by unknown assailants in Pakistan’s Sialkot on Wednesday.

India media reporting this news, can PPers based out of Pakistan confirm if this is true.

 

[Saanji]

RAW is getting too aggressive now.

 

[happydavy]

N. Waziristan elder killed in targeted attack

NORTH WAZIRISTAN: A tribal elder was killed in what the police said a targeted attack carried out by unknown masked...

www.dawn.com

Malik is said to be the founder of Lashkar-e-Jabbar and also a close aide of one of India’s most wanted terrorists Azhar.

What's going on in Pakistan!

 

[chinaman00]

RAW by far. ISI might have had an edge during the Cold War due to the assistance from the West, but that edge is now totally gone. For a while, the ISI maintained an edge in the human intelligence sphere, while RAW was and is still heavy on the technical side of intelligence (signals intelligence, geospatial, cyber, psychops ) but in recent years, RAW has matched and exceed the ISI in the human intelligence sphere, as well. This is why you read of an emboldened RAW able to execute operations deep inside Pakistan.

ISI today is more focused on internal security and political engineering rather than what it was created for. Those that consider it as a top intelligence organization simply have nostalgic recollections of the past and are out of tune with the current state of affairs at the ISI.

 

[Saanji]

Oops voted wrong.. RAW is several generations behind ISI as it lacks the base and huge funding ISI got in the cold war era from CIA.

But going by recent trends, RAW is rising from its slumber while ISI is stagnating hard.
Still ISI is more powerful than RAW as a spy agency for now, but things might not remain as it is.

 

[happydavy]

It's actually funny that some believe that ISI supporting Afghans Mujahideen was some great intelligence work. Fine, ISI in its heydays would have orchestrated a few explosions in India and killed a few citizens. Or they got a few dollars and technology from CIA to help them during cold war. Or they sent some militants in kashmir for shahadat. But all this to what effect? What's the legacy they are today left with? RAW on the other hand did something ground breaking, they liberated an entire country of Bangladesh and divided Pakistan into 2. Purely in terms of legacy and impact, nothing can match that.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

India's RAW forced to pull out of North America for first time in over 50 years: report

For the first time since its founding in 1968, Indian spy agency, Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), has ceased operations at its stations in North America ahead of expected initiation of criminal charges against an Indian citizen for conspiring to assassinate a pro-Sikh activist in New York, according to a report published by ThePrint.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Nikhil Gupta, 52, worked with the Indian government employee, whose responsibilities included security and intelligence, to assassinate a New York City resident Gurpatwant Singh Pannun who advocated for a Sikh sovereign state in northern India.

The charges come after a senior Biden administration official last week said US authorities had thwarted a plot to kill a Sikh separatist in the United States and issued a warning to India over concerns the government in New Delhi was involved.

The Indian government has complained about the presence of Sikh separatist groups outside India, including in Canada and the United States. The groups have kept alive the movement for Khalistan, or the demand for an independent Sikh state to be carved out of India.

The movement is considered a security threat by India. Sikh separatists were blamed for the 1985 bombing of an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India in which all 329 people on board were killed.

The cause hardly has any support in India presently and was crushed within the country by the government in the 1990s.

In September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed Indian government agents for the killing of a Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in a Vancouver suburb in June.

The fallout from the Vancouver incident raised concerns that RAW will come under greater global monitoring, Indian intelligence officials and analysts were cited as saying in a Reuters report.

Providing insights into subsequent events, ThePrint report, while citing intelligence sources, disclosed that two high-ranking RAW officers were asked to depart from their posts in major Western cities earlier this summer.

The publication stated it withheld the names of the two officers as both remain in service with the agency.

“Expelling the officers was part of a series of moves intended to signal anger against what the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom saw as violations of the unwritten conventions which govern the operations of RAW in those countries,” the report added.

It said that the officers were the head of the RAW station in San Francisco and the second-in-command of its operations in London, sources said.

“The shuttering of RAW’s stations in San Francisco and Washington DC, coming on the back of the publicly-declared expulsion of its station chief in Ottawa, Pavan Rai, has left the agency unrepresented in North America for the first time since it was founded during the tenure of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1968,” according to the report.

It detailed that prosecutors in the US claimed that alleged drug dealer Nikhil Gupta was offered up to $150,000 by an individual claiming to work for the Indian intelligence services to arrange the murder of an unnamed Khalistan lawyer and activist.

ThePrint quoted its sources as saying that US officials told interlocutors in New Delhi that the RAW conspired to assassinate top Khalistan activist and lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

It also reported that the expulsion of the RAW officer in San Francisco was done with an apprehension that the US would not cooperate with Indian intelligence if the agency continued offensive operations in the West.

“British intelligence had voiced unhappiness on several occasions over the increasing involvement of RAW in Sikh diasporic politics in the country under former chief Goel, a Punjab-cadre IPS officer who served in operations against Khalistan terrorists before joining RAW,” detailed the report.

It also quoted an unnamed senior RAW officer as saying “if the problem really escalates, the ambassador or high commissioner might be involved, but things have never gone this far.”

India's RAW forced to pull out of North America for first time in over 50 years: report

India's RAW forced to pull out of North America for first time in over 50 years: report

dunyanews.tv

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Police bust 2 RAW agents in Karachi

Karachi police have arrested two alleged Indian RAW agents who were planning to carry out a major terror attack in the city.

The two suspects, identified as Khawar Hussain and Jabbar, were arrested in the Korangi area of Karachi.

Police recovered two hand grenades, a 9mm pistol, and ammunition from their possession.

According to police, the suspects were allegedly receiving instructions from their handlers in India to carry out terror attacks in Karachi. They were also sending details and photographs of their targets to their handlers.

The men have allegedly received hundreds of thousands of rupees from outside the country as well.

The suspects have been handed over to the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) for further investigation.


AAJ News

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Police nabs RAW agents working in Karachi for 26 years

Police and intelligence agencies in Karachi have carried out a joint operation and arrested two suspected Indian spy agency RAW operatives in the Korangi area. According to the SSP Korangi, the arrested suspects are Sheikh Muhammad Ayub alias Ayub Ansari and Hassan Reza.

The police arrested the two RAW operatives who had come to Karachi 26 years ago. The police also recovered extremist material from their possession.

During the investigation, the suspects confessed that they had come to Pakistan from Mumbai in 1998 and were working for the Indian intelligence agency RAW, and were also involved in targeted killings on the directions of Indian agency.

The suspects had obtained illegal identity cards and passports, and worked as drivers and AC technicians to hide their identities. They revealed that the Indian agency RAW is operating a network of terrorism in different countries.

It is pertinent to mention that a few days ago, the police had arrested two other RAW operatives, Khawer and Jabbar, from Korangi, while two more suspects with links to RAW were arrested from Islamabad.


AAJ News

 

[Cricket Warrior]

RAW agent arrested in Karachi

In a recent development, the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of Sindh police has reportedly arrested a suspect allegedly affiliated with the Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) from Karachi’s Mauripur area, ARY News reported on Monday.

The Senior Superintendent of Police – Shoaib Memon – confirmed that the accused, identified as Muhammad Saleem, is affiliated with the Indian spy agency RAW and was apprehended near Fish Chowrangi on Manora Road, Karachi.

Authorities recovered a hand grenade, a bomb, a launcher, and a pistol from Saleem, along with service cards from multiple departments.

SSP Memon revealed that the accused possessed passports and identity cards under different names to deceive the security agencies meanwhile, the maps of Manora and Chinaport were also seized from the possession of the arrested agent.

The recovered passports indicate that Saleem had traveled between Pakistan and India via Nepal on several occasions.

After the recovery of the illegal weapons and other anti-Pakistan evidence, a total of three cases have been registered against the arrested individual.

Further investigations are underway to uncover more details about the suspect’s activities.

RAW agent arrested in Karachi

KARACHI: In a recent development, the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of Sindh police has reportedly arrested a suspect allegedly affiliated with the

arynews.tv

 

[Kroll]

Powerful is probably not a word to be used, they're like kindergarten kids compared to the likes of Mossad, MI6 etc.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Raw agent sentenced to death for murder of Kashmiri commander

An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Tuesday sentenced a Raw agent to death twice and handed imprisonment ranging from 35 to 40 years to five other convicts for the murder of a former Kashmiri commander Bashir Ahmed Wani.

ATC judge Tahir Abbas Sipra delivered the verdict after hearing a case related to the assassination of Bashir Ahmed Wani.

Former Kashmiri commander was killed in 2023 on the outskirts of Islamabad in Burma Town.

Following the incident, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Police arrested six individuals and charged them under various sections, including anti-terrorism and murder.

ATC judge Tahir Abbas Sipra awarded the death penalty twice to the main accused Shahzeb alias Zebi.

Additionally, Moez Ahmed and Faizan Kayani received 40 years and 9 months of imprisonment, while Mehran Younis, Nauman Sattar, and Arsalan Wajid were each sentenced to 35 years and 9 months in prison.

The court also determined that the accused had received funding from the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for acts of terrorism.

Prosecutor Raja Naveed presented substantial incriminating evidence against all the accused, arguing that Shahzeb Zebi, Moez Ahmed and Faizan Kayani were financially supported by RAW for terrorist activities.

The prosecution also submitted documentary evidence in court to substantiate these claims.

Raw agent sentenced to death for murder of Kashmiri commander

ISLAMABAD: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Tuesday sentenced a Raw agent to death twice and handed imprisonment ranging from 35 to 40 years to five other

arynews.tv

 

[Bewal Express]

Raw is desperate to ferment chaos in PK, whilst the ISI is too busy fighting IK and PK people to keep the plots and billions flowing. Figure that out.

 

[Buzzinga]

People citing RAW agents getting caught as their incompetence, should consider this fact that spies do get caught all over the world. Chinese and Russians in USA, CIA in Russia, ISI in India.

To some extent i even agree that RAW fall far behind many other spy agencies but RAW at least does or tries to do what it was created for, whereas ISI seems too much invested in political meddling since last decade or so.

RAW is like a German Shepherd, an obedient dog which will do anything to please its masters... Whereas ISI seems to be a Siberian Husky, no matter how much you train them, they are gonna remain wild, unpredictable, showing teeth to its own masters.

 

[Buzzinga]

ISI is similar to Pakistani Army, who themselves are involved in things like Politics, Businesses, having tangible and intangible property etc. Thats not what they should be concerned with in a democracy.

A question to Pakistanis- is ISI a seperate entity or just another branch of Army?

 

[BouncerGuy]

This can never be judged upto perfection... Some might say ISI some will say RAW but there is no way to judge this thing..

 

[Cricket Warrior]

If with an army of over 700,000, India can't defend against such attacks then they certainly can't claim their intelligence agency is the best.

 

[emranabbas]

India probably have the worst intelligence in south Asia after spending billions still can't stop and attack on their door step

 

[Greenstorm]

South Asian intelligence agencies are representative of general incompetence and short sightedness of our people.

Indian intelligence agencies have been a bit better in that they kept India relatively safe. Focused outwards and have a firm control in terms of narrative building in their mainstream media.

Pakistani intel have lost their edge with important military personnel/assets targeted in Pakistan by Indians and they have failed at their main job that is keeping the country safe. That is the price they pay for managing elections, removing governments and targeting democratic voices i.e essentially fighting its own people. Boys can track and target PTI supporter in Timbuktu but can't protect trains in Pakistan from Indians !

 

[sweep_shot]

I think RAW is overrated.

ISI is more efficient.

 

[Justcrazy]

India probably have the worst intelligence in south Asia after spending billions still can't stop and attack on their door step

They could not stop or did not want to stop ? Remember you can wake a sleeping person , but you cannot a person who is pretending to sleep.

Last time Pulwama attack happened same questions were asked , and now again same thing.
Also , is this really a coincidence that both attack were just before state elections ?

 

[BouncerGuy]

It is not about which agency is the best, it is about efficiency and TBH, RAW has been a disappointment for India. NO????

Any indian wanna shed light on this??

 

[straighttalk]

Isi is far more effective..it has conducted so many terrorist activities and killed countless Indian civilians and armed forces. India has done zilch. Wish we now start supporting the Baloch freedom fighters and prevent genocide.

The success of Isi is also due to our inept political leadership. On one hand they hold a leash on RAW and made it ineffective and on the other hand they only strike the cannon fodder terrorist until now ..only this time ISI will be stuck..but pity ISI and Rawalpindi knows the same and have vacated the premises..so it would be symbolic.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

Pakistan is a poor country, bad economy and now India has turned off the water ISI will die of thirst. They have great universities while Pakistan is full of madrassashs.

No doubt as a result of Indians booming economy that RAW is more powerful. Even if you look at normal soldiers they look well fed and nourished compared to Pakistanis. One can only imagine how advanced their intelligence is.

 

[JaDed]

Lol how can RAW be better than ISI, ISI has a country, they even get ministerial posts- aka NSA.