ISI meaning in Pakistan Government ?

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; Urdu: بین الخدماتی سراغرسانی‎) is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan, operationally responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing information relevant for national security from around the world. As one of the principal members of the Pakistani intelligence community, the ISI reports to its director-general and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the government of Pakistan.

The ISI consists primarily of serving military officers drawn on secondment from the three service branches of the Pakistan armed forces such as army, navy and air force, hence the name "Inter-Services". However, the agency also recruits many civilians. Since 1971, the agency has been headed formally by a serving three-star general of the army appointed by the prime minister on the recommendation of the Chief of Army Staff, who recommends three officers for that position. As of 2021, the ISI is currently headed by lieutenant general Faiz Hameed, who was appointed as its director general on 17 June 2019. The ISI director general reports directly to both the prime minister and the army chief.

The agency gained global recognition and fame in the 1980s, when it supported the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War in the erstwhile Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. During that war, the ISI worked in close coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and the Secret Intelligence Service of the UK to run Operation Cyclone — a program to train and fund the mujahideen with support from China, Israel, and Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the ISI with funding from Saudi Arabia provided strategic support and intelligence to the Afghan Taliban against the Northern Alliance during the Afghan Civil War in the 1990s.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in their first ever open acknowledgement in 2011 in US Court, said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sponsors terrorism in Kashmir and it oversees terrorist separatist groups in Kashmir.