Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday appointed former Intelligence Bureau Chief Syed Asif Ibrahim Special Envoy to West Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) region.
Updated on: Jun 3, 2015, 01:25:09 IST
Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi New Delhi New Delhi New Delhi New Delhi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday appointed former Intelligence Bureau Chief Syed Asif Ibrahim Special Envoy to West Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) region.
Ibrahim will be part of National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and will report to National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval. Ibrahim’s responsibilities will cover the Indian response to the ferment in West Asia, rise of Islamic State in Syria-Iraq region as well as the flux in the Af-Pak region.
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Ibrahim, who retired from the Intelligence Bureau on December 31, 2014, has close contacts in West Asia states, particularly in the 6 lakh-strong Indian diaspora. Regarded by his peers as a thorough professional, Ibrahim is in personal touch with minority leaders in India with special focus on weaning young Indian Muslims from fundamentalism.
During his IB tenure, Ibrahim virtually wiped out the top leadership of Pakistan-supported terror group Indian Mujahideen (IM) and successfully urged countries like Saudi Arabia not to give shelter to fugitives from Indian law.Top government sources said Ibrahim’s role will be on multiple fronts with focus within and outside the country.
“Asif Ibrahim will handle the de-radicalisation programme within the country to ensure that Indian youth do not get motivated by fundamentalists to join forces with either Islamic State or Al Qaida supported terror groups operating in Syria-Iraq region and Af-Pak region respectively,” said a senior official.
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Ibrahim along with NSA Doval worked in tandem to secure the release of Jesuit priest Alexis Prem Kumar last February after he was abducted by Taliban in Herat in Afghanistan in 2014. The two also travelled last year to the West Asia to secure the release of 39 labourers from Punjab held captive by IS in Mosul.
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Ibrahim along with NSA Doval worked in tandem to secure the release of Jesuit priest Alexis Prem Kumar last February after he was abducted by Taliban in Herat in Afghanistan in 2014. The two also travelled last year to the West Asia to secure the release of 39 labourers from Punjab held captive by IS in Mosul.
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While Ibrahim will hold the rank of secretary to Government of India, he is expected to play a key role in protecting Indian interests in Af-Pak region and beyond. He will be one of the key interlocutors with Pakistan.
Given that Islamic radicalisation is on the rise with the advent of IS and Al Qaida in Indian subcontinent, Ibrahim will be the points person to present the Indian perspective at meetings all over the world. It is understood that Islamabad is concerned about Ibrahim’s role in Af-Pak and West Asian affairs as he is perceived to have a good working relationship with the Saudi royal family.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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