This happened seventeen months ago, but it is important to recall it now after the arrest of CIA agent Raymond Davis. This story establishes a pattern.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—On Tuesday, 6 October 2009, new evidence emerged on how the US Embassy in Islamabad is involved in providing diplomatic cover to illegal CIA operations in Pakistan.
Dutch diplomats were intercepted carrying explosives near the residence of Pakistani president. The weapons were not licensed and the car number plate were fake. The real surprise came when the US Embassy in Islamabad dispatched a US embassy employee to save the Dutch diplomats.
The weapons found by Pakistani policemen were no exactly the kind one would carry for self-protection. The police recovered two 9-millimeter pistols, four magazines, two smoke grenades, two stun grenades and six bulletproof jackets. The two Dutch diplomats, identified as Tomas Smith and William Van, failed to produce any permits for the weapons.
When asked why they were carrying grenades, the Dutch diplomats claimed the grenades were for testing purposes. In a few minutes, an employee of the US embassy, Sunny Christopher, arrived in another vehicle to back up the Dutch diplomats, giving rise to the speculations that the latter might have been transporting weapons for the Americans.
Moments later, a telephone call from a senior official at the Interior Ministry ordered the police to release the Dutch diplomats and the employee of the US embassy citing diplomatic immunity.
As usual, the Interior Ministry did not consult with the Foreign Ministry about whether the foreign diplomats carrying dangerous weapons and unable to explain why should be released without a probe. The Foreign Ministry, however, made sure to summon the Dutch diplomats the next day and express concern over the diplomats running illegal weapons in the capital.
In early 1980s, two senior French diplomats were arrested and expelled from Pakistan after they confessed to working with CIA to spy on Pakistani nuclear installations.
Pakistan has a long history of foreign-backed terrorism. During the 1970s and the 1980s, Soviet KGB and Indian RAW cooperated from occupied Afghanistan in launching a wave of terror bombings in public places that killed hundreds of Pakistanis and spread chaos in the country.
Something similar is happening today. In view of this history, it was irresponsible on the part of the Interior Ministry not to probe the link between a US embassy employee and two Dutch diplomats carrying grenades in the Pakistani capital.
This case must have had a link to covert CIA operations in Pakistan, something similar to how CIA agent Raymond Davis has been found in contact with terrorists on the Afghan border.
This is not the only evidence of CIA using its presence in Afghanistan to run anti-Pakistan operations. The spy agency is involved along with other foreign spy services in Afghanistan in supporting terrorism inside Pakistan’s strategic Balochistan province, not to mention the support that a terror group like TTP continues to receive from unknown sources in Afghanistan to continue its campaign of terror inside Pakistan. [For more information, see Link Between CIA And Terrorism In Pakistan.] Religious extremists do exist in Pakistan but have become lethal after the injection of financing and weapons from US-controlled Afghanistan. Also, foreign-backed terrorism is disguising itself under the banner of the war on terror.
Pakistani investigators have strong reasons not to let any opportunity slip by to probe the massive and sophisticated bombings and assassinations taking place in Pakistan, the latest being that of Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti which was claimed by the same terrorists who make the Afghan border their home and exclusively target Pakistan.
The government of President Zardari has a vested interest in not confronting the Americans with any hard questions. It relied on American support to come to power and continues to do so for survival. No wonder the Interior Ministry is quick to let go of mostly American ‘diplomats’ or CIA agents found wandering in different parts of Pakistan. But it is ironic that the specialized Pakistani departments, like FIA and the intelligence agencies, had until recently ignored these signs for such a long time and let this problem come to a head with Davis affair.
Even now, Pakistani officials refuse to raise this accumulated evidence of CIA’s illegal activities in Pakistan in their interactions with US officials. What CIA is doing here means only one thing, that Washington is treating us with kid gloves on the surface because we are a nuclear-armed country while quietly using CIA to weaken the country from within and from Afghanistan.
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