Report Suggests Pakistani Envoy In Washington Has Issued 360 Visas To Americans In One Month Without Consulting Islamabad
Blackwater USA is looking for mercenaries fluent in Urdu, Pakistan's national language, and Punjabi, the language spoken by natives of Pakistan's largest populated province. The US military already deploys officers and commando units manned by people fluent in Pashto, spoken in most of western Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. Keeping in view the denials of the US embassy in Islamabad and the expanding American presence on Pakistani soil, these recruitments are obviously not meant for running call centers. Since Washington has unilaterally decided that Pakistan is now a 'war theater' after Iraq and Afghanistan, it is only natural that American terrorism will also be unleashed in Pakistan. Blackwater is in Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Blackwater USA has concealed its Web presence. If you type www.BlackwaterUSA.com, you will be redirected to the website of an organization called U.S. Training Center , which offers military and personal security courses. The website does not overtly say or indicate it is linked to Blackwater, but on Sept. 12 a media release was posted on the homepage defending Blackwater against accusations the private 'army' overbilled the US government for work in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.
The bigger news, however, is that 'Blackwater USA' is hiring in Pakistan. While BlackwaterUSA.com does not exist on the Web any longer, I 3an employment form on a secured page of the private security firm's website that clearly indicates the private mercenary army is hiring Urdu- and Punjabi-speaking agents. This would complement the existing Pashto-speaking agents that both Blackwater private mercenary army and its employer, the US military, have on the ground in Afghanistan and – as reports increasingly indicate – in Pakistan.
Snapshots of the screen from the page titled secure.blackwaterusa.com show that the page is part of the Blackwater Employee and Applicant Resource System (BEARS).
CLICK TO ENLARGE
The snapshots shown here indicate that hiring continues as we speak for agents and for people with military training who can speak Urdu, Pakistan's national language, and Punjabi, spoken by the natives of Pakistan's largest populated province.
Obviously, agents with proficiency in the two languages will be operating in and around Pakistan since there is little utility for such agents anywhere else in the world.
This is the latest in a pile of circumstantial evidence that supports the growing concerns within the Pakistani public opinion that private US security firms are setting up shop in Pakistan, bringing to the country the same mayhem that has engulfed Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly with the permission of influential people in the Pakistani government.
A petition has been submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan today requesting that the government of Pakistan be ordered to explain why the US embassy in Islamabad is building a fortified embassy the size of an international airport, spread over 52 to 54 acres. The petitioner, who is a private Pakistani citizen, has accused the United States of constructing a military base in the heart of the Pakistani capital in the guise of an embassy.
On Aug. 5, PakNationalists/AhmedQuraishi.com broke the news of how a Washington-incorporated private company that calls itself an NGO and executes contractual humanitarian work for the US government in conflict zones is suspected of acting as cover for Blackwater in Peshawar.
On Jul. 27, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur [DPA] reported that residents of an upscale suburb in Peshawar have formally complained to the Pakistani government that armed private Americans were spreading fear in the area.
We also received a statement issued by Mr. Richard Snelsire, the spokesman for the US embassy in Islamabad, denying these reports:
Since 2002, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has committed more than $3.4 billion in humanitarian and development assistance to the people of Pakistan in relief, health, education, and economic development programs.
Creative Associates is one of many organizations USAID engages to deliver this assistance, which also includes the Government of Pakistan, local non-governmental, and international humanitarian institutions. This organization has no link to any international security firm, nor is it affiliated in any way with an intelligence service.
Recent allegations against USAID partners such as Creative Associates are false, and place individuals delivering humanitarian and development assistance to the people of Pakistan at risk.
Richard Snelsire
Despite these denials, the Pakistani government and the US embassy are unable to explain several incidents in Peshawar and Islamabad over the past few weeks that involved privately armed American citizens, especially accounts by private citizens confirming they have seen and interacted with these foreign agents in public places. In at least three incidents, these privately armed Americans were released by police authorities under pressure from the government despite involvement in altercations with local Pakistanis. In one case, an armed US citizen physically assaulted a Pakistani police officer and uttered obscenities against the host country.
The alarming part of this story is that the embassy of Pakistan in Washington is reported to have issued several hundred entry permits and visas to individuals without seeking clearance from the country's security departments. In one recent report, it is reported that the Pakistani ambassador issued 360 visas to US citizens in one month, sometime this year, from the ambassador's discretionary quota of visas and again without clearance from Pakistani security departments.
Who are these Americans who are arriving in Pakistan in the tens and hundreds at a time when the US embassy in Islamabad follows a strange practice where a staffer personally calls any US citizen in the United States in order to warn them about coming to Pakistan for personal reasons or pleasure, apparently because of the security situation?
Monday, January 11, 2010
US Recruiting Retired Pakistani Military Officers
Who Protected Ali Zaidi, A Frontman For American Mercenaries In Pakistan?
Despite denials by the US Embassy in Islamabad, this incident exposes the presence of American private security operations similar to Blackwater in Pakistan. The embassy and US citizens working for either the US government or the US military are recruiting retired and well connected Pakistani military officers in order to build a network of informants and special operations agents inside Pakistan. This is tantamount to creating a US military presence in Pakistani cities without sending the US army into Pakistan. To camouflage this effort, US government's media management teams are using the mainstream American media to churn out stories that seek to discredit these reports as 'conspiracy theories'.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Washington is invading Pakistan without the need to order the US military in Afghanistan to invade Pakistani territory.
Some influential lobbies within the US government, military and intelligence have been advocating a direct invasion of Pakistan for quite some time. It was impossible to achieve because of Washington would not prefer a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed Pakistan.
But the Americans have achieved several breakthroughs in Pakistan recently without putting a single boot on the ground.
CIA-manned drones have so far killed less than 20 al-Qaeda terrorists at the cost of murdering more than 700 innocent men, women and children, Pakistani citizens, who have unfortunately been abandoned by the power elite in Islamabad.
Now evidence confirms that the United States has launched a massive program of recruitment of retired Pakistani military officers to create information-gathering networks and private militias tasked with special operations inside Pakistan.
Part of this expansion is the introduction of private American security firms, or American mercenaries, contracted by the US military and working on their behalf. The US embassy is being used as a cover. US diplomats often tell Pakistani authorities that the private security militias are tasked with the protection of US diplomats and five diplomatic missions in five major Pakistani cities. This is correct in many cases but not in all cases. The US program of recruitment of retired Pakistani military officers and bolstering the presence of private security firms is far larger than just the task of protection of US buildings in Pakistan.
Since the Pakistani military and Pakistan's intelligence agencies remain on Washington's target list, retired military officers can provide a valuable insight and access into the inner side of the Pakistani military. US diplomats and others directly seeking this type of insight would alert Pakistani security authorities. But not if the same is done using retired Pakistani officers.
The case of a former Pakistani special operations officer Captain Ali Zaidi must send alarm bells ringing within the Pakistani national security community.
Capt. Zaidi's Inter-Risk security firm was the Pakistani face for US defense contractor DynCorp, which provides defense-related maintenance and supply services to US military bases worldwide. But in Pakistan, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, DynCorp was helping Washington create private security militias, or mercenaries in real terms, with proper military training and access to advanced weapons.
This is tantamount to creating an indirect US military presence inside Pakistani cities. The alarming part is the Zaidi and DynCorp had created an elaborate physical setup right in the heart of Pakistan to train recruited Pakistanis. Using his connections within the Pakistani civilian and military bureaucracy, Mr. Zaidi is suspected of smuggling advanced weapons into the country to be used by the Americans and their hired recruits. As a legal, cover, the US Embassy in Islamabad told Pakistani authorities that Zaidi/DynCorp were providing security services to US diplomats.
Pakistani newspaper The Nation broke the story on Sept. 29, with hard evidence, including photographs of an elaborate building on the outskirts of the Pakistani federal capital that was acting as a military training facility for the Pakistani recruits. The facility was camouflaged as a car repair workshop.
The activities of Mr. Zaidi and the US defense contractor DynCorp were obviously being protected by individuals at high levels of the Pakistani government. In fact, US Ambassador Anne Patterson personally intervened earlier this year with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Interior Minister Rehman Malik seeking licenses for Mr. Zaidi and DynCorp to operate in entire territory of Pakistan. This is why Mr. Zaidi managed to stay away from Pakistani investigators thanks to a bail. But The Nation reports today that the court has cancelled his bail and that he has been arrested yesterday, which is an indication of how seriously Pakistani authorities are taking this case. [continued below]
click to enlarge
[On Sept. 30, Mr. Ansar Abbasi of The News published the full content of a letter written by Ambassador Patterson to Interior Minister Rehman Malik, dated March 30, seeking his "intervention" to grant Inter-Risk and DynCorp "the requisite prohibited bore arms licenses to operate in the territorial limits of Pakistan and as soon as possible."
The letter creates a new dent in the US embassy's counteroffensive that seeks to downplay the presence of private US security firms in the country. A Web news portal, PakNationalists/AhmedQuraishi.com released fresh evidence this month showing the infamous US security firm formerly known as Blackwater recruiting military-trained agents fluent in Urdu and Punjabi.]
[The Americans are looking for ambitious risk-takers such as Mr. Zaidi. For more information on how this retired officer describes himself, see his own brief biography posted at a Pakistani news website that introduces him as an 'investigative editor'.]
HIRING ACADEMICS/MEDIA COMMENTATORS
Retired Pakistani military officers are not the only people being hired by the Americans in Pakistan to spy on their own country. Washington's military and intelligence has also hired the services of a handful of Pakistani academics and media commentators. These civilian recruits are longtime critics of their own country and its national interest. The Americans are using them to present a Pakistani face to what essentially are American plans for Pakistan. These academics/commentators also provide occasional input into US plans and Washington uses them to sell these ideas and plans to the US public as something that the Pakistanis people themselves are demanding.
Despite denials by the US Embassy in Islamabad, this incident exposes the presence of American private security operations similar to Blackwater in Pakistan. The embassy and US citizens working for either the US government or the US military are recruiting retired and well connected Pakistani military officers in order to build a network of informants and special operations agents inside Pakistan. This is tantamount to creating a US military presence in Pakistani cities without sending the US army into Pakistan. To camouflage this effort, US government's media management teams are using the mainstream American media to churn out stories that seek to discredit these reports as 'conspiracy theories'.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Washington is invading Pakistan without the need to order the US military in Afghanistan to invade Pakistani territory.
Some influential lobbies within the US government, military and intelligence have been advocating a direct invasion of Pakistan for quite some time. It was impossible to achieve because of Washington would not prefer a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed Pakistan.
But the Americans have achieved several breakthroughs in Pakistan recently without putting a single boot on the ground.
CIA-manned drones have so far killed less than 20 al-Qaeda terrorists at the cost of murdering more than 700 innocent men, women and children, Pakistani citizens, who have unfortunately been abandoned by the power elite in Islamabad.
Now evidence confirms that the United States has launched a massive program of recruitment of retired Pakistani military officers to create information-gathering networks and private militias tasked with special operations inside Pakistan.
Part of this expansion is the introduction of private American security firms, or American mercenaries, contracted by the US military and working on their behalf. The US embassy is being used as a cover. US diplomats often tell Pakistani authorities that the private security militias are tasked with the protection of US diplomats and five diplomatic missions in five major Pakistani cities. This is correct in many cases but not in all cases. The US program of recruitment of retired Pakistani military officers and bolstering the presence of private security firms is far larger than just the task of protection of US buildings in Pakistan.
Since the Pakistani military and Pakistan's intelligence agencies remain on Washington's target list, retired military officers can provide a valuable insight and access into the inner side of the Pakistani military. US diplomats and others directly seeking this type of insight would alert Pakistani security authorities. But not if the same is done using retired Pakistani officers.
The case of a former Pakistani special operations officer Captain Ali Zaidi must send alarm bells ringing within the Pakistani national security community.
Capt. Zaidi's Inter-Risk security firm was the Pakistani face for US defense contractor DynCorp, which provides defense-related maintenance and supply services to US military bases worldwide. But in Pakistan, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, DynCorp was helping Washington create private security militias, or mercenaries in real terms, with proper military training and access to advanced weapons.
This is tantamount to creating an indirect US military presence inside Pakistani cities. The alarming part is the Zaidi and DynCorp had created an elaborate physical setup right in the heart of Pakistan to train recruited Pakistanis. Using his connections within the Pakistani civilian and military bureaucracy, Mr. Zaidi is suspected of smuggling advanced weapons into the country to be used by the Americans and their hired recruits. As a legal, cover, the US Embassy in Islamabad told Pakistani authorities that Zaidi/DynCorp were providing security services to US diplomats.
Pakistani newspaper The Nation broke the story on Sept. 29, with hard evidence, including photographs of an elaborate building on the outskirts of the Pakistani federal capital that was acting as a military training facility for the Pakistani recruits. The facility was camouflaged as a car repair workshop.
The activities of Mr. Zaidi and the US defense contractor DynCorp were obviously being protected by individuals at high levels of the Pakistani government. In fact, US Ambassador Anne Patterson personally intervened earlier this year with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Interior Minister Rehman Malik seeking licenses for Mr. Zaidi and DynCorp to operate in entire territory of Pakistan. This is why Mr. Zaidi managed to stay away from Pakistani investigators thanks to a bail. But The Nation reports today that the court has cancelled his bail and that he has been arrested yesterday, which is an indication of how seriously Pakistani authorities are taking this case. [continued below]
click to enlarge
[On Sept. 30, Mr. Ansar Abbasi of The News published the full content of a letter written by Ambassador Patterson to Interior Minister Rehman Malik, dated March 30, seeking his "intervention" to grant Inter-Risk and DynCorp "the requisite prohibited bore arms licenses to operate in the territorial limits of Pakistan and as soon as possible."
The letter creates a new dent in the US embassy's counteroffensive that seeks to downplay the presence of private US security firms in the country. A Web news portal, PakNationalists/AhmedQuraishi.com released fresh evidence this month showing the infamous US security firm formerly known as Blackwater recruiting military-trained agents fluent in Urdu and Punjabi.]
[The Americans are looking for ambitious risk-takers such as Mr. Zaidi. For more information on how this retired officer describes himself, see his own brief biography posted at a Pakistani news website that introduces him as an 'investigative editor'.]
HIRING ACADEMICS/MEDIA COMMENTATORS
Retired Pakistani military officers are not the only people being hired by the Americans in Pakistan to spy on their own country. Washington's military and intelligence has also hired the services of a handful of Pakistani academics and media commentators. These civilian recruits are longtime critics of their own country and its national interest. The Americans are using them to present a Pakistani face to what essentially are American plans for Pakistan. These academics/commentators also provide occasional input into US plans and Washington uses them to sell these ideas and plans to the US public as something that the Pakistanis people themselves are demanding.
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