Sunday, February 27, 2011

Pakistan Trial of CIA Operative Adjourns

A Pakistani court has adjourned the murder trial of a CIA agent and former Blackwater operative accused in the shooting deaths of two men last month. The Obama administration had insisted Raymond Davis was a diplomat until acknowledging his work for the CIA this week. The United States has called for Davis’s repatriation as a diplomat entitled to diplomatic immunity, but Pakistani authorities are challenging his diplomatic status in court. Davis’s murder trial will continue next week. According to Reuters, two U.S. citizens were quietly withdrawn from Pakistan last month after causing a fatal car accident as they came to Davis’s aid. A police report says the pair struck a Pakistani motorist, only to flee the scene. The Davis case has strained U.S.-Pakistani ties. On Thursday, Pakistan’s main spy agency, the ISI, announced it’s scaling back cooperation with the CIA.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Gadhafi getting help from mercenaries

TRIPOLI, Libya, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was getting the help of African mercenaries and militiamen to maintain his 40-year rule, witnesses said Wednesday.

The New York Times said thousands of mercenaries and militia were on roads headed for Tripoli, the capital and Gadhafi's stronghold, where Gadhafi appears to be strengthening his forces in anticipation of a decisive stage in the struggle for control of the country.

Opponents in Tripoli said they were making plans for their first organized protest Friday, the Times said.
GALLERY: Protesting Moammar Gadhafi

A growing number of military officers and officials Wednesday said they had broken with Gadhafi over his intentions to bomb and kill Libyan civilians, the report said.
Armed militiamen strafing crowds from the back of pickup trucks killed scores in Tripoli, residents told the Times, and bursts of gunfire extended the reign of terror Wednesday.

Human rights groups say they have confirmed about 300 deaths, though witnesses suggested the number was far larger. Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of Italy said there were probably more than 1,000 dead across the country.

Italy is the former colonial power in Libya.

CNN, citing Libya's Quryna newspaper, reported the crew of a Libyan military aircraft Wednesday refused to bomb Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and let the warplane crash in an uninhabited area southwest of the city.

The newspaper said the pilot parachuted out of the Russian-built Sukhoi-22.

CNN said Quryna has switched from reporting regime propaganda to reporting on the protests and casualties.

Al-Jazeera, the Arab cable news channel, said its correspondent reported protesters claiming control of the western city of Misurata. In an Internet statement, army officers in the city vowed "total support for the protesters," the report said.

News outlets reported Benghazi had been taken over by the opposition.

Meanwhile, Italian warplanes were said to be keeping an eye on a stalled Libyan naval vessel off the coast of Malta. Al-Jazeera reported its correspondent in Malta said tensions were rising in Italy over the civil unrest in Libya.

There were rumors in Malta that the vessel had lowered its flags, suggesting its crew was defecting.

Much of the country's east region appeared to be in the hands of protesters, al-Jazeera said.

Meanwhile, the Swedish tabloid Expressen said Libya's recently resigned justice minister, Mustapha Abdeljalil, claims Gadhafi personally ordered the Lockerbie airliner bombing that killed 270 people in 1988.

An al-Jazeera correspondent said there were no officials manning the border when the broadcaster's team crossed into Libya near Tobruk.

Maj. Gen. Suleiman Mahmoud, commander of the armed forces in Tobruk, told al-Jazeera his troops had switched sides: "We are on the side of the people."

Earlier, Libyan government officials said the country's former interior minister, who resigned to support anti-government protesters, had been kidnapped.

Abdul Fattah Younis al Abidi told CNN Wednesday he resigned earlier in the week after hearing unarmed civilians were killed in Benghazi, while Libyan state media reported that "gangs" in Benghazi had kidnapped the minister.

Libyan security forces have warned that the people responsible for Abidi's kidnapping "will be chased in their hiding places." Earlier Wednesday, Abidi said he had resigned his post to back protesters who want Gadhafi to end his rule.

"Gadhafi told me he was planning on using airplanes against the people in Benghazi, and I told him that he will have thousands of people killed if he does that," Abidi told CNN in a telephone interview.

He called Gadhafi "a stubborn man" who won't concede.

"He will either commit suicide or he will get killed," the former minister said.

Abidi urged security forces to defect and join the anti-government protesters. A number of security personnel have switched sides, and a growing number of Libyan government and diplomatic officials reportedly have resigned since the protests started Feb.15.

After Gadhafi's second televised speech in two days -- in which he vowed to kill protesters "house by house" -- thousands of his supporters went to the Tripoli's central Green Square, wearing green bandannas and carrying machetes, witnesses said.

"It looks like they have been given a green light to kill these people," one witness said.

Tripoli remained under an information blackout, with no Internet access and intermittent phone service, making independent confirmation of events difficult.

In Tobruk, on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast near the Egyptian border, Libya's historic red, black and green flag -- barred during Gadhafi's reign -- flew over many buildings, The Wall Street Journal said.

Gadhafi, meanwhile, vowed to remain in the country "until the end."

"I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr," he said, calling the protesters "cockroaches" and "greasy rats," and blaming the unrest on foreigners, including the United States and al-Qaida.

Condemnations of the crackdown mounted, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing the violence as "completely unacceptable."

The U.N. Security Council condemned Libya's use of anti-civilian violence, which it said was a "crime," and called for those responsible to be held accountable.

The League of Arab States condemned what it also called crimes against civilians and suspended Libya as a member until it responded to the people's demands.

In Brussels, the European Union suspended a framework agreement it had been negotiating with Libya.

Governments worked to get tens of thousands of foreigners out of Libya Wednesday, whether by sea or air. At least two oil companies said they were suspending some operations and evacuating workers.

Libya holds Africa's greatest oil reserves, normally exporting 1.2 million barrels a day, mostly to Europe, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

How many Davis-type agents are in Pakistan?

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani authorities are trying to figure out the exact number and locations of other Raymond Davis type CIA and Blackwater agents whose main focus, it is feared, is Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

The cold blooded killings in Lahore by Davis has alarmed the Pakistani security agencies, which, according to sources, have started collecting details of all the likes of Raymond Davis, their local moles and their activities in Pakistan.

However, as indicated by the former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi that the issue of the Raymond Davis has been mishandled, the sources said that there are certain elements within the government who are found to be too supportive of Washington than Pakistan.

Sources believe that the number of Davis like CIA and Blackwater agents is high and may be around one hundred. However, there is no exact number available with the authorities. It was General Musharraf who, after 9/11 for perpetuating his dictatorial rule, opened the country’s gates for American agents at the cost of Pakistan’s own security.

In 2009, three Americans along with a Pakistani had tried to trespass into the restricted area of Kahuta but the official security agency deployed at the check post got alerted and intercepted them when they crossed the check post. The Pakistani accompanying these Americans was a retired assistant director of the FIA, who while introducing himself as an FIA officer had managed to free the Americans and returned.

Through this trespassing, according to an official report, the Americans had tried to check the security arrangements for the Kahuta Research Laboratories, one of the leading nuclear sites of Pakistan. “This one incident had a vital role in moving out DynCorp men from the Sihala Police College facility where they were allowed to train the police officials but were found in spying on the country’s nuclear facility,” a source said.

DynCorp, which is a Blackwater like private security agency that works for American CIA outside the United States, was also allowed to operate in sensitive areas, including the Sihala Police College by Musharraf but was pampered by the Interior Ministry of the present government.

Despite alarming intelligence reports about the DynCorp’s activities under the cover of Anti-Terrorism Assistance Programme (ATAP), the Interior Ministry, vide its letter number 1/41/2003-Police dated 29 June 2009, had granted an NoC for import of explosive material by the office of ATAP at the Sihala Police College.

“The NoC was issued without security clearance from intelligence agencies under the US pressure,” a security agency report submitted to the government said, adding that prior to approaching the Interior Ministry, the US Embassy in Islamabad had approached the Ministry of Industries to issue the NoC but the Industries Ministry’s authorities decided that it would be issued subject to the clearance by the ISI and IB.

“The IB sought some clarifications about quantity and type of explosives and detail of courses. Resultantly administration of Police College Sihala requested the Americans running the ATAP camp to provide the required details. However, instead of providing the details, Mr Robert A Clark and Mr Bob of ATAP Camp contacted the US Embassy, which used its influence and managed to get the NoC while bypassing the rules.”

In a similar fashion and following the request of the US Embassy as already reported by The News, the Interior Ministry had issued prohibited bore licenses to DynCorp’s local partner Inter-Risk which, after the media reported the matter, had become a major controversy but no one in the Interior Ministry was touched.

Even now some key elements in the Interior Ministry are said to be favouring Washington in Davis case. The same elements, it is said, are using their influence on the families of the deceased, killed by Davis, to accept dollars from Americans to ensure early release of the American killer.

The role of the Pakistani Embassy in the US is also under scrutiny after the reported issuance of about 400 visas to US citizens in the first two days of the implementation of the controversial visa policy under which the embassy was empowered to issue visas to US officials upto one year without referring the cases to Pakistan.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Growing Anger in Pakistan Over US CIA/Blackwater Killings

LAHORE, Pakistan - – New revelations about a CIA contractor in custody for shooting two men dead heaped pressure on Pakistan's fragile government Tuesday and exposed burning public mistrust of Washington.

Activists of Pakistan's outlawed religious party Jamaat-ud Dawa shout slogans during a protest against arrested US national Raymond Davis in Lahore on February 18. The unpopular government in Pakistan is under huge pressure from the political opposition not to cave in to US demands to release Davis, with analysts even warning that the case could bring down the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP). (Photo/Arif Ali) Officials in Washington cited by US media reports confirmed the account of a Pakistani intelligence official, who told AFP that Raymond Davis, the American being held in a prison in Lahore city, was working undercover for the CIA.

Washington is pushing hard for Pakistan's authorities to free Davis, arguing that he has diplomatic immunity and backing his claim to have acted in self-defence when he shot the men in a busy city street nearly four weeks ago.

The foreign ministry has so far refused to define Davis's diplomatic status and a Lahore court last week gave the government another three weeks to do so.

The opposition and relatives of the dead men said it was time for the government to come clean with what it knows of Davis and to address suspicions that he also worked for Xe, a US security firm formerly known as Blackwater.

"Davis deserves no pardon... We knew from day one that he was working for the CIA and Blackwater," said Mohammad Waseem, the brother of the deceased Mohammad Faheem.

"People like Davis have a role in terrorist activities in Pakistan. He should be tried and given the death sentence."

The New York Times on Monday reported that Davis was part of a CIA operation tracking Islamist extremists in eastern Pakistan such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, the virulently anti-Indian group blamed for the bloody 2008 siege of Mumbai.

The newspaper said he "worked for years as a CIA contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide". It noted that the company has long been seen by Pakistanis "as symbolizing a culture of American gun-slinging overseas".

"Whether he is a Blackwater or CIA agent the facts should be exposed by the federal government because it is their responsibility," said Pervez Rashid, spokesman for the opposition-controlled Punjab government.

Pakistani police say that after the shooting on January 27, they recovered a Glock pistol, four loaded magazines, a GPS navigation system and a small telescope from Davis's car.

A third Pakistani was struck down and killed by a US diplomatic vehicle that came to his assistance. US officials denied Pakistan access to the vehicle and the occupants are widely believed to have left the country.

Right-wing religious group Jamat-e-Islami, which wants Davis to be hanged for murder, said the courts should be left to adjudicate, but that he should also be now tried for espionage.

A lawyer for the three families of the men killed, Asad Manzoor Butt, raised the possibility of fresh espionage charges but said the claims should not affect an ongoing murder case in the courts.

The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as denying that Davis was directly involved in CIA espionage or drone operations, which have killed hundreds of alleged militants in Pakistan's northwest on the Afghan border.

The case complicates relations with the United States, which have already been strained by mistrust over the US-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday told parliamentarians that the two governments would not allow the Davis case to undermine their "mutually beneficial partnership".

But while he said Pakistan was mindful of its international obligations, he insisted the government "will not compromise on Pakistan's sovereignty and dignity".

US Senator John Kerry visited Pakistan last week to express regret and say Davis would face a criminal investigation at home.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Raymond Davis Is CIA Contractor, U.S. Officials Say

By MATTHEW COLE
Feb. 21, 2011
According to a current senior U.S. official and a senior intelligence consultant who worked with Davis, the 36-year-old American is a former Blackwater contractor who was posted to Lahore as part of the CIA's Global Response Staff, or GRS, a unit of security and bodyguards assigned to war zones and troubled countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Members of the GRS most often accompany CIA case officers, who meet with clandestine sources.

Davis and a group of fellow security officers lived in a safehouse in Lahore. The CIA keeps safehouses for security personnel in an effort to limit the ability for militants to track their movements, the intelligence contractor said.

ABC News was asked by the U.S. government to withhold publication of Davis's affiliation with the CIA, citing fears that disclosure would jeopardize his safety. After several foreign media organizations published parts of his background, the U.S. government rescinded its request to ABC News to embargo the information.

On Jan. 27, Davis left the safehouse and conducted an "area familiarization route," according to the senior U.S. official. He drove through various Lahore neighborhoods for several hours. It was during his route, two U.S. officials say, that Davis stopped at an A.T.M. and possibly drew the attention of two Pakistani men on a motorcycle.

Davis has told the police in Lahore that the two men were attempting to rob him when he fired several rounds from his Glock handgun, hitting them both. The police report says that Davis claimed one of the men had a gun cocked at him. Davis fired multiple rounds from inside his car, killing one man in the street, while the second died later from his injuries.

Davis then called for help from several other CIA security officers who shared his Lahore safehouse, according to a U.S. official and the intelligence consultant. As they arrived near the intersection, they accidentally hit a Pakistani motorcyclist. The motorcyclist later died of his injuries. Davis' colleagues were unable to get to Davis before the police arrested him. They left the scene and returned to their safehouse.

Within hours, they had destroyed all government documents at the safehouse, abandoned it, and retreated to the U.S. consulate for safety. Both have since returned to the U.S., according to a senior U.S. official briefed on the case.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

5,500 Mercs to Protect U.S. Fortresses in Iraq

By Spencer Ackerman

In September 2007, Blackwater guards working for the U.S. State Department killed 17 Iraqis at Baghdad’s Nisour Square, one of the most controversial episodes in the long war there. But State isn’t backing away from its mercs. With American troops scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of the year, the ambassador to Iraq will become a de facto general of a huge, for-hire army — one larger than a U.S. Army heavy combat brigade.

During a Senate hearing today, John Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged the top U.S. civilian and military officials in Iraq to “be careful” about “replacing a military presence with a private mercenary presence.” A report that the committee released yesterday and announced today explained why: the State Department plans to field 5,500 private security contractors to protect up to 17,000 civilians working for the American government in Iraq.

The report barely goes into the composition of the emerging mercenary army, but since State has been so tight-lipped about its plans, it sheds new light on how diplomats will be protected after the military leaves Iraq at the end of the year. A force of 3,650 private security guards will be stationed at the huge Baghdad embassy. (The security firm SOC Inc. has a contract for protecting that embassy worth as much as $974 million.) It’ll be supplemented with mercs at four satellite installations: 600 in the Kurdish capitol of Irbil; 575 in Basra (the report says Baghdad, but it appears to be a misprint); and 335 each at Mosul and Kirkuk.


“Roughly four thousand of these will be third-country nationals serving as static perimeter security for the various installations,” the report states. In the past, private companies have hired non-westerners as guards, as they work cheaper than westerners do.

Non-Americans also make up a large proportion in a ginormous U.S. civilian presence. The Senate report anticipates a whopping “17,000 individuals” working for the Baghdad embassy. Only 650 of them will actually be diplomats, backstopped by “hundreds” of U.S. officials from the Treasury, Justice and Agriculture departments. But they’ll “mostly” be foreign employees “working as life-support and security contractors.” That is, the people who do the laundry, cook the food and clean the messes.

The size of the anticipated private-security force in Iraq is slightly lower than an estimate offered by a State official in June, but it’s much higher than the 2,700 security contractors employed in Iraq right now. And aside from the static security stationed at those five State Department installations, they’ll be operating at the “15 different sites” that State plans on operating, “including 3 air hubs, 3 police training centers… and 5 Office of Security Cooperation sites.”

At today’s hearing, both Amb. James Jeffrey and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of American forces in Iraq, endorsed a 2011 troop withdrawal and a large U.S. diplomatic mission. That leaves State with its merc army to provide protection.

Those contractors will be “registered with the Iraqi authorities,” Jeffrey insisted, and “under the direct supervision of our security personnel,” the State contractor-oversight officials who’ll be “riding in every convoy” — a check against future Nisour Squares.

Who is Raymond Davis?

Strangely, the more we get to know about the case of Raymond Davis, the less we seem to know. Even more strangely, the fact that the entire incident happened in broad daylight and in front of dozens of witnesses seems is itself confusing the facts rather than adding clarity. Moreover, it seems that no one seems to want to get much clarity either; although different parties may want different parts of the story to ‘disappear.’ The incident was rather eerie and disturbing to begin with; and it continues to become more so.

Here is what one does know. Raymond Davis, a staff member of the US Consulate in Lahore shot two Pakistani men dead on Thursday in a crowded part of Lahore (Mozang Chowk), according to him in self-defense. A US Consulate vehicle that rushed in to ‘rescue’ Mr. David then ran over a third person, who also died. A murder case was then registered against Raymond Davis, who was handed into police custody. A case has also been registered against the driver of the US Consulate vehicle that ran over a third person, but the driver has not yet been apprehended. After a fair deal of scrambling by both US and Pakistani officials on what to do or say, the positions of both have now started becoming clear and they have taken the stance that is usually taken in such cases: the US is asking that Raymond Davis, as a diplomatic functionary, should be handed back to them; Pakistan seems to be responding that the matter is sub judice and should take its course.

Beyond that, there are more questions than answers. For most part, these questions fall into three categories: (1) Questions about who is Raymond Davis? (2) Questions about exactly what happened at Mozang, Lahore? (3) Questions about what should happen now ?

On the first question, earliest reports suggested that Raymond Davis was a “technical adviser” and a “consular” official. More recently, US Embassy officials have described him as a “functionary” of the Embassy assigned to the US Consulate in Lahore and carrying a US Diplomatic passport. Reportedly he was hired at the US Consulate in Lahore as a security contractor from a Florida-based firm Hyperion Protective Consultants. All of this has material relevance to whether he would enjoy diplomatic immunity or not, but even more because of the apprehensions of many Pakistanis that he could be linked to the CIA or to the infamous firm Blackwater (later renamed XE Services).

And that leads squarely to the second question: what exactly was happening at Mozang? Very much in line with the immediate knee-jerk reaction of many Pakistanis, an early commentary by Jeff Stein in The Washington Post seemed to suggest rather fancifully that the shootout could have been a “Spy rendezvous gone bad?” That would be a conspiracy theory, but not an entirely implausible one. Mozang is not a part of town that you would expect too many foreigners, let alone a US official, visiting; and certainly not in what was reportedly a rented private vehicle. And while Pakistan today is clearly an unsafe place, the question of just why an Embassy official was carrying a firearm be wished away. On the other hand, however, Mr. Davis claims that he shot in self defense as the two men on the motorcycle were trying to rob him at gun point. Anyone who knows Pakistan knows all too well that this, too, is entirely possible. TV footage and reports coming immediately after the incident showed one of the young men lying dead with a revolver and wearing an ammunition belt. And certainly, the question of why at least one of the two young men on the motorcycle was carrying a loaded firearm cannot be wished away just because he had “dushmani.” Indeed, serious questions need to be asked about just who the two young men on the motorcycle were, just as they need to be asked about who Raymond Davis is. There just seem to be too many unnecessary weapons in too much proximity in this story. All of the many explanations that are floating around are very disturbing, but also very plausible. Which is exactly why this story is even more dangerous if left unresolved.

Finally, the third question – which is now getting the most attention – about what should happen now. Much is being made – maybe too much – about the Vienna Convention and its implications for diplomatic immunity. Familiar diplomatic games about the minutia of vocabulary are being played and will in most likelihood result in all too familiar results. That is exactly what one would expect in any such situation anywhere. But this is not ‘any‘ situation’; and this is not ‘anywhere‘. This is about US-Pakistan relations: there is just about nothing that the US can say or do which Pakistanis are likely to believe, and there is just about nothing that Pakistan can say or do which Americans are likely to trust. Which is why getting stuck in the intricacies of the Vienna Convention of 1963 is the exact wrong place to get stuck. This is a time for public diplomacy: certainly from the US and maybe even from Pakistan. It is not in America’s interest to be seen to be standing in the way of justice and due process. And it is not in Pakistan’s interest to be seen to conducting a flawed process of justice. There are too many people on the extreme in both countries who will not and cannot to change their opinion and apprehensions about the other. But there are even more people in both countries who could all too easily be swayed to the extremes on distrust if this delicate case is not handled with clarity and transparency by both countries. Doing so will probably bring with it more than just a little diplomatic embarrassment. Not doing so can only bring worse in the tinderbox that is US-Pakistan relations.