Iranian warships enter Suez Canal after 3 decades

By SALAH NASRAWI

The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 22, 2011; 2:55 AM

CAIRO -- Suez Canal officials say two Iranian naval vessels have entered the strategic waterway en route for the Mediterranean Sea.

Canal officials say the ships - a frigate and a supply vessel - entered the canal early Tuesday morning and are expected to reach the Mediterranean later in the day. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
This marks the first time in three decades that Iranian military ships have traveled the waterway that links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.
Israel has made clear it views the passage as a provocation.
Iranian officials say the ships are headed to Syria for a training mission. Damascus is close ally of Iran'shardline Islamic rulers and an arch foe of Israel.
By Washington post

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US officials admit Remond ties with CIA

The American who fatally shot two men in Pakistan last month and who has been described publicly as a diplomat is a security contractor for the CIA who was part of a secret agency team operating out of a safe house in Lahore, U.S. officials said. The contractor, Raymond A. Davis, 36, has been detained in a Pakistani jail since his arrest. He has said that he opened fire on two Pakistani men after they tried to rob him at a traffic signal in Lahore.
The disclosure compounds an already combustible standoff between the United States and Pakistan at a time of growing distrust between the two countries and complicates U.S. efforts to win Davis's release.
President Obama and other senior administration officials have repeatedly described Davis as a diplomat who was assigned to the U.S. Consulate General in Lahore and have said he is entitled to immunity from prosecution in Pakistan.
But, in fact, Davis has spent much of the past two years working as part of a group of covert CIA operatives, whose mission appears to have centered on conducting surveillance of militant groups in large cities, including Lahore.
At the time of his arrest, Davis was based at a house with five other CIA contractors as well as an agency employee, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The official said the impact of the disclosure that Davis is a CIA contractor "will be serious.
"I think it's going to make it a hell of a lot harder to get him out," the official said. "I think ISI knows what this guy is, but I think this is just going to inflame the Pakistanis."
ISI is the acronym for Pakistan's spy service, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
"Our security personnel around the world act in a support role providing security for American officials. They do not conduct foreign intelligence collection or covert operations. Any assertion to the contrary is flat wrong," said George Little, a spokesman for the CIA, without commenting specifically on Davis. The Washington Post learned of Davis's CIA affiliation after his arrest but agreed not to publish the information at the request of senior U.S. intelligence officials, who cited concern for Davis's safety if his true employment status were disclosed.Those officials withdrew the request Monday after other news organizations identified Davis as a CIA employee and after U.S. officials made a final attempt to prevail upon Pakistan's government to release Davis or move him to a safer facility. U.S. officials reiterated their concern for Davis on Monday and provided new details on the conditions at the jail where he is being held. One U.S. official said Davis had been moved to a separate section of the facility where the guards' guns had been taken away "for fear that one of them may kill him." The official added that the jail holds about 4,000 inmates and that three detainees have previously been killed by guards."The local police are allowing angry protesters very near the prison," the official said. He added that jail authorities were using dogs to taste or smell the food given to Davis "to make sure it doesn't contain poison."
Even while shedding new light on the circumstances of Davis's detention, U.S. officials continued to provide scant information about his assignment. A former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Davis was hired as a contract employee of the CIA's Global Response Staff, a unit that is responsible for providing security for agency employees and facilities in other countries.
Current and former U.S. officials said Davis had previously been employed by the sprawling security firm once known as Blackwater. A spokeswoman for the company, now known as Xe Services, did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. officials said that at the time of the shooting, Davis was doing what CIA employees refer to as "area familiarization," meaning basic surveillance designed to familiarize operatives with their surroundings.
The work would help to explain a collection of items found in Davis's possession when he was arrested, including a camera, a small telescope, a first-aid kit, flashlights and a Glock semiautomatic pistol.
The description of his activities is at odds with early accounts by U.S. officials, who had indicated that he was not on a particular assignment when the shooting occurred and that he was attacked in his vehicle after withdrawing money from an automated teller machine.
Davis has testified that he was approached by two Pakistani men on a motorcycle and that they brandished a weapon in an apparent attempt to rob him. Pakistani authorities have threatened to charge Davis with murder and have released pages from police reports indicating that he fired at the backs of the men he killed even as they attempted to flee.A third Pakistani, a pedestrian, was fatally struck by a U.S. vehicle that apparently had been dispatched from the Lahore consulate to retrieve Davis.
Officials in Pakistan said the government has known that Davis worked for the CIA and that the U.S. acknowledgment bolsters Islamabad's case that Davis was not a diplomat and, therefore, is not entitled to immunity. Davis's affiliation with the CIA was "one of the major reasons" for the complications surrounding the case, a senior Pakistani official said. The broader impact, the official said, will be in "adding to the public anger and anguish, and hence more pressure on authorities in Islamabad not to succumb to the American pressure to hand over Davis." State Department officials reiterated Monday that Davis was entitled to diplomatic immunity under the terms of the Vienna Convention, which has been ratified by Pakistan, the United States and most other countries. A senior official, asked whether diplomatic immunity applied to CIA employees posted abroad, said Davis's employer was not relevant."Under international law, there are very few areas where the law is so clear," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with ground rules.
The CIA and the ISI have cooperated extensively on counterterrorism operations. Pakistan has secretly authorized CIA drone strikes in the country's tribal belt, where al-Qaeda and other militant groups are based. The CIA has mainly relied on the ISI to carry out arrests of senior al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, including Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi and other major cities.
But the murky mission of the team that included Davis suggests that the CIA has sought to expand its capabilities in Pakistan's urban areas, where high-ranking militants are thought to have taken refuge from the deadly toll of drone strikes.
One U.S. official said Davis and the others working out of a Lahore safe house "were hooked up with JSOC," the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command, which has taken on an increasingly important role in intelligence-gathering missions in Pakistan.
"There were five other contractors and a blue badger living in a safe house in Lahore," the official said, referring to the colored badges worn by CIA personnel.
The CIA has provided leads and intelligence to ISI units that have made high-profile arrests. But that partnership might be strained if Davis's team were focused on militant groups with close ties to the ISI, including Lashkar-i-Taiba, a potent organization with deep support in Pakistan that is accused in the deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai.CIA Director Leon Panetta testified last week that the CIA-ISI relationship is one of the "most complicated" he had encountered in decades of service in Washington. Earlier this year, U.S. officials accused the ISI of intentionally exposing the identity of the agency's top spy in Pakistan, forcing the CIA to recall the officer back to Washington.
By Washington post

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CIA agent Davis had ties with local militants

ISLAMABAD: As American newspapers lifted a self-imposed gag on the CIA links of Raymond Davis, in place on the request of the US administration, The Express Tribune has now learnt that the alleged killer of two Pakistanis had close links with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The New York Times reported on Monday that Davis “was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country, according to American government officials.”

This contradicts the US claim that Davis was a member of the ‘technical and administrative staff’ of its diplomatic mission in Pakistan.

Davis was arrested on January 27 after allegedly shooting dead two young motorcyclists at a crowded bus stop in Lahore. American officials say that the arrest came after a ‘botched robbery attempt’.

“The Lahore killings were a blessing in disguise for our security agencies who suspected that Davis was masterminding terrorist activities in Lahore and other parts of Punjab,” a senior official in the Punjab police claimed.

“His close ties with the TTP were revealed during the investigations,” he added. “Davis was instrumental in recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban to fuel the bloody insurgency.” Call records of the cellphones recovered from Davis have established his links with 33 Pakistanis, including 27 militants from the TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi sectarian outfit, sources said.

Davis was also said to be working on a plan to give credence to the American notion that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not safe. For this purpose, he was setting up a group of the Taliban which would do his bidding.

The larger picture

Davis’s arrest and detention has pulled back the curtain on a web of covert American operations inside Pakistan.

The former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had cut a secret deal with the US in 2006, allowing clandestine CIA operations in his country. This was done to make the Americans believe that Islamabad was not secretly helping the Taliban insurgents.

Under the agreement, the CIA was allowed to acquire the services of private security firms, including Blackwater (Xe Worldwide) and DynCorp to conduct surveillance on the Taliban and al Qaeda.

According to The New York Times, even before his arrest, Davis’s CIA affiliation was known to Pakistani authorities. It added that his visa, presented to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in late 2009, describes his job as a “regional affairs officer,” a common job description for officials working with the agency.

American officials said that with Pakistan’s government trying to clamp down on the increasing flow of CIA officers and contractors trying to gain entry to Pakistan, more of these operatives have been granted “cover” as embassy employees and given diplomatic passports.

However, “The government and security agencies were surprised to know that Davis and some of his colleagues were involved in activities that were not spelled out in the agreement,” a source told The Express Tribune.

“Davis’s job was to trail links of the Taliban and al Qaeda in different parts of Pakistan. But, instead, investigators found that he had developed close links with the TTP,” added the source.

Investigators had recovered 158 items from Davis, which include a 9mm Gloc Pistol, five 9mm magazines, 75 bullets, GPS device, an infrared torch, a wireless set, two mobile phones, a digital camera, a survival kit, five ATM cards, and Pakistani and US currency notes, sources said.

The camera had photographs of Pakistan’s defence installations.

Intelligence officials say that some of the items recovered from Davis are used by spies, not diplomats. This proves that he was involved in activities detrimental to Pakistan’s national interests.

The Punjab law minister has said that Davis could be tried for anti-state activities. “The spying gadgets and sophisticated weapons recovered are never used by diplomats,” Rana Sanaullah told The Express Tribune.

He said some of the items recovered from Davis have been sent for a detailed forensic analysis. “A fresh case might be registered against Davis under the [Official] Secrets Act once the forensics report was received,” he said.

Sanaullah said that Davis could also be tried under the Army Act. To substantiate his viewpoint, he said recently 11 persons who had gone missing from Rawalpindi’s Adiyala jail were booked under the Army Act.

However, a senior lawyer said that only the Army has the authority to register a case under the Army Act of 1952 against any person who is involved in activities detrimental to the army or its installations.

“Such an accused will also be tried by the military court,” Qazi Anwer, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association said.  He added that the civil authorities could register a case of espionage against any person.

But interestingly, despite all the evidence of Davis’s involvement in espionage, the federal government is unlikely to try him for spying.

“He will be prosecuted only on charges of killing of two men in Lahore,” highly-placed sources told The Express Tribune.

The Davis saga has strained relations between Pakistan and the United States, creating a dilemma for the PPP-led government.

More pressure

The pressure on the Pakistan government to release Davis has been steadily intensifying.

According to The New York Times, “there have been a flurry of private phone calls to Pakistan from Leon E Panetta, the CIA director, and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all intended to persuade the Pakistanis to release the secret operative.” WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ASAD KHARAL IN LAHORE

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd, 2011.

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