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Spy Game: US, Pak tangle gets messy, bloody
Read more: Spy Game: US, Pak tangle gets messy, bloody - The Times of India
Spy Game: US, Pak tangle gets messy, bloody - The Times of India
WASHINGTON: The United States said Thursday it will try hard to ensure there is no anti-American backlash from a shooting incident on a busy Lahore street on Thursday in which a US consular official, who Pakistanis suspect is a spy, shot and killed two locals, who Americans suspect may have been jihadis.
"We want to make sure that a tragedy like this does not affect the strategic partnership that we're building with Pakistan. And we'll work as hard as we can to explain that to the Pakistani people," was the tempered reaction from State Department spokesman Philip Crowley even as the two 'allies' faced yet another explosive diplomatic situation following the incident.
The episode has all the ingredients of a scene from a spy thriller, with spooks from each side offering their version of the shooting. Broadly, the official version from both sides is that the consular official, identified in some reports as Raymond Davis, was driving through a busy Lahore marketplace when he was accosted by two motorcycle borne men who tried to rob him, upon which he shot them. One died on the spot and another died in a hospital.
Davis called the consulate for help and a complement of embassy personnel who rushed there in a SUV ended up running over another person who later died in the hospital. This is where the narrative enters unofficial terrain. It appears the Americans tried to flee the scene holding back an angry mob at gunpoint, but they got stuck in a traffic snarl, and were apprehended by the police. Davis was then taken into custody, going by the grainy video image of a white male flashed on Pakistani television.
Then the story enters grey area, with various sides giving their own spin through the media. Under pressure to release Davis and stick to the ''shot two robbers in self-defense' version, Pakistanis have been throwing up awkward questions through the media, such as why was Davis driving alone through a marketplace, especially after a suicide bomb blast earlier this week, at a time when anti-American sentiment is high in Pakistan and Americans are asked to avoid exposure? Where was he going, why was he armed, and what is his real assignment in the Consulate ? It also turns out the vehicle he was driving had fake number plates.
The Pakistani implication is that he is a spy, belonging either to the CIA or the security firm Blackwater aka Xe services. Washington has not helped clarify the matter by being evasive in defining his duties, only saying he is an official attached to the consulate. Some reports said he arrived in Pakistan only ten days ago and he is attached to a security detail, although diplomatic status would have given him immunity. Pakistani police has said he will be charged with the killings if he does not have diplomatic status.
Amid all this kerfuffle, which comes weeks after the two sides fell out over outing of the CIA station chief in Islamabad by Pakistani elements (suspected to be ISI-linked), a U.S expert has suggested the shoot-out was more likely a spy meeting gone awry, and not a robbery or car-jacking attempt as is being portrayed.
"It looks like an informant meet gone bad more than a car-jacking attempt," Fred Burton, a former deputy chief of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service's counter-terrorism division said on a Washington Post blog. "Either the consulate employee's route was compromised by terrorist or criminal surveillance, or it's feasible he was set up in some sort of double-agent operation, if this wasn't a criminal motive."
Burton also praised Davis' "outstanding situational awareness" to recognize the attack unfolding and shoot the other men. "It shows a high degree of firearms discipline and training," he added. Indeed, considering the attackers were armed, and possibly had the element of surprise to their advantage, the American official , or operative, appears to have displayed both presence of mind and skill. U.S spymasters had ordered a review of procedures in engaging with potential contacts in the aftermath of the Afghan border incident in which seven CIA personnel were killed by a rogue Jordanian agent they believed was a trusted informant.
But the Pakistani media, particularly those close to the establishment, portrayed the two dead men as "thorough gentlemen" who had little to do with the spycraft. One newspaper, under the headline "American Rambo goes berserk in the city" had an entirely different version of the incident, claiming that the U.S official had first run over a youth and only after he was chased and stopped by a mob did he shoot the two men.
In any event, the incident adds to the growing tension between the two sides. Americans worry that the weak civilian government and public opinion is being manipulated by hard-line elements in the military and the ISI to provoke anger against the United States. There was grim foreboding in Washington on Thursday about the possible backlash against the U.S, with old-timers recalling the burning down of the American Embassy in Islamabad in 1979.