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Masood Anwar's story triggered a global search for the plane that blew the lid off the notorious "extraordinary rendition" programme. It all started with the registration number of a private jet that had whisked away a terrorism suspect from Karachi.
The information about the private jet helped establish the CIA was illegally moving suspects to be tortured in a network of secret prisons around the world. It set off a hunt for jets wherever they landed, became evidence for lawyers defending the incarceration of men at Guantanamo Bay, led to the conviction of US agents, and inspired books and a Hollywood flick featuring Reese Witherspoon.
More people disappeared under similar circumstances from various countries, including Indonesia, Sweden, Egypt, Morocco and Thailand.
Among them was Saad Iqbal Madni, a Pakistani Quran reciter, who was arrested by Indonesian police on January 9, 2002, while in Jakarta. He was accused of having links with the infamous British shoe-bomber, Richard Reid.
Other journalists, along with human rights activists, started enquiring about the whereabouts of some missing people, especially those who had been arrested in Europe.
"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," the article quoted one American official, trying to justify brutal interrogation methods that included waterboarding, electric shocks and sleep deprivation.
But it was not until mid-2004 that the actual scale of the CIA's global torture network became public.
But not only tortures ...
On May 15, 2005, it was reported that Predator drones had been used to kill Al-Qaeda figure Haitham al-Yemeni in a targeted killing inside Pakistan.
On January 13, 2006, the CIA launched an airstrike on Damadola, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border, where they believed Ayman al-Zawahiri was located. The airstrike killed a number of civilians but al-Zawahiri apparently was not among them.
A CIA Operation Cannonball was disclosed in 2008. Began in 2006, it was intended as part of an effort to capture Osama bin Laden and eliminate Al-Qaeda forces in Pakistan. The operation was reportedly hampered by conflicts between CIA offices, leading to large delays in the deployment of the program
On December 16 2010, The CIA evacuated its Station Chief, later named as Jonathan Bank, from Pakistan after his cover was blown in legal action brought by relatives of a person killed in a 31 December 2009 drone attack, for which the Station Chief was accused of being responsible. The CIA, in a rare move, recalled the Station Chief, citing "security concerns" and concerns about his safety. Neither the CIA nor the US government officially recognise Station Chiefs, but they are acknowledged to exist by intelligence organizations.
In January 2011 CIA contractor Raymond Allen Davis fatally shot dead two young men on the streets of Lahore, Punjab after on claims that he was defending himself. His status as a CIA contractor was discovered after he was arrested by Punjab police and charged with 2 counts of murder and the possession of illegal firearms. In the same situation another USA team of four people riding an SUV crushed a motor cyclist and killed him before running away back to the USA consulate. It is alleged that all four people left Pakistan in the evening on special flight. These four people are still at large.
Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor who spied for the CIA to locate Osama bin Laden, was jailed in 2012 for 33 years by a Pakistani court on charges of treason.
In 2016 Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a United States drone strike in Balochistan.
This is just a short list of the CIA activities only in Pakistan.
For the Pakistani journalist Masood Anwar who started it all, his story was a matter of luck. He never received a reward or formal recognition, and wasn't able to follow up on his reporting or the renditions after his newspaper refused to finance further reporting.
Let's follow up on further reporting because the CIA operatives are still on the Pakistani soil. For the moment some of them are among the US embassy officials in Islamabad:
Thomas Wade ARMSTRONG, Second Secretary
John Paul GRANOS, Third Secretary
Nicholas Anton STALICK, Second Secretary
... and those possibly join the embassy in future:
Jeremy Bo PINNER, First Secretary
Karl Alexander SNYDER III, First Secretary
Brian Scott ZABIN, Second Secretary
Timothy David BIRNER, First Secretary
The information about the private jet helped establish the CIA was illegally moving suspects to be tortured in a network of secret prisons around the world. It set off a hunt for jets wherever they landed, became evidence for lawyers defending the incarceration of men at Guantanamo Bay, led to the conviction of US agents, and inspired books and a Hollywood flick featuring Reese Witherspoon.
More people disappeared under similar circumstances from various countries, including Indonesia, Sweden, Egypt, Morocco and Thailand.
Among them was Saad Iqbal Madni, a Pakistani Quran reciter, who was arrested by Indonesian police on January 9, 2002, while in Jakarta. He was accused of having links with the infamous British shoe-bomber, Richard Reid.
Other journalists, along with human rights activists, started enquiring about the whereabouts of some missing people, especially those who had been arrested in Europe.
"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," the article quoted one American official, trying to justify brutal interrogation methods that included waterboarding, electric shocks and sleep deprivation.
But it was not until mid-2004 that the actual scale of the CIA's global torture network became public.
But not only tortures ...
On May 15, 2005, it was reported that Predator drones had been used to kill Al-Qaeda figure Haitham al-Yemeni in a targeted killing inside Pakistan.
On January 13, 2006, the CIA launched an airstrike on Damadola, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border, where they believed Ayman al-Zawahiri was located. The airstrike killed a number of civilians but al-Zawahiri apparently was not among them.
A CIA Operation Cannonball was disclosed in 2008. Began in 2006, it was intended as part of an effort to capture Osama bin Laden and eliminate Al-Qaeda forces in Pakistan. The operation was reportedly hampered by conflicts between CIA offices, leading to large delays in the deployment of the program
On December 16 2010, The CIA evacuated its Station Chief, later named as Jonathan Bank, from Pakistan after his cover was blown in legal action brought by relatives of a person killed in a 31 December 2009 drone attack, for which the Station Chief was accused of being responsible. The CIA, in a rare move, recalled the Station Chief, citing "security concerns" and concerns about his safety. Neither the CIA nor the US government officially recognise Station Chiefs, but they are acknowledged to exist by intelligence organizations.
In January 2011 CIA contractor Raymond Allen Davis fatally shot dead two young men on the streets of Lahore, Punjab after on claims that he was defending himself. His status as a CIA contractor was discovered after he was arrested by Punjab police and charged with 2 counts of murder and the possession of illegal firearms. In the same situation another USA team of four people riding an SUV crushed a motor cyclist and killed him before running away back to the USA consulate. It is alleged that all four people left Pakistan in the evening on special flight. These four people are still at large.
Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani doctor who spied for the CIA to locate Osama bin Laden, was jailed in 2012 for 33 years by a Pakistani court on charges of treason.
In 2016 Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a United States drone strike in Balochistan.
This is just a short list of the CIA activities only in Pakistan.
For the Pakistani journalist Masood Anwar who started it all, his story was a matter of luck. He never received a reward or formal recognition, and wasn't able to follow up on his reporting or the renditions after his newspaper refused to finance further reporting.
Let's follow up on further reporting because the CIA operatives are still on the Pakistani soil. For the moment some of them are among the US embassy officials in Islamabad:
Thomas Wade ARMSTRONG, Second Secretary
John Paul GRANOS, Third Secretary
Nicholas Anton STALICK, Second Secretary
... and those possibly join the embassy in future:
Jeremy Bo PINNER, First Secretary
Karl Alexander SNYDER III, First Secretary
Brian Scott ZABIN, Second Secretary
Timothy David BIRNER, First Secretary
(Thomas Wade ARMSTRONG, 
)
