Foreign contractors on sensitive duties in Afpak region

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

Social and political circles in City feel immensely concerned at reports that a spy network funded and founded by a highly placed official in the United States of America has been operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This was disclosed by journalist Mark Mazzetti in a detailed story carried on May 15 by the otherwise informed and reliable New York Times. Television news channels are free in the country, Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) is the torch-bearer of press freedom and the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) is tremendously flourishing which can be seen by the way it is extending membership to new publications all over the country.

However, for an in-depth report on the peeping Toms of foreign origin, the countrymen have to depend on a New York daily. The familiar television talk show experts who froth at the mouth every night by pretending to be the know-all on each and every subject have been understandably mum and carefully tight-lipped on the matter. While people in the Afpak region have been raising a hue and cry over the intensity, frequency and precision of the missile strikes delivered by the pilotless drone planes, the US officials continue to depend on a secret network of private spies who sent hundreds of confidential dispatches from deep inside Pakistan and Afghanistan.

NYT quoted some Pentagon officials as having said that the operation appeared to morph into traditional spying activities but the supervisor who set up the contractor network, Michael D Furlong, was now under investigation. Earlier this year, officials in Washington admitted to the fact that US army had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the Afpak area to collect sensitive information. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation but some of the information thus gathered was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Once an investigation was initiated against the intelligence-gathering activities, the operation was hastily slowed or shut down.

In a somewhat sensational disclosure, the NYT referred to vital documents and interviews with former and present officials and businessmen that said the networks were still operating. The paper said that from interrogating prisoners to hunting terrorism suspects, the contractors had an expanded role getting money under a $22 million contract. However, the contract expires at the end of May and the Pentagon decided just recently not to renew it. For the time being, the private contractors submit detailed reports on the working of Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movement of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan to military commanders who subsequently take action.

The repercussions of the action are felt in the congested localities of Peshawar, busy thoroughfares of Kurram and Orakzai agencies and the mountainous terrain in Landi Kotal. For example, in an unprecedented incident of its kind in the area, unidentified gunmen on Saturday kidnapped about 64 people travelling in 10 different vehicles near the Chapri Mor and the Totkas area on the boundary of Kurram Agency. Armed men intercepted four Peshawar-bound vehicles including two trailers of Tribal Electric Supply Company (Tesco). Armed men later also intercepted six more vehicles including two mini-coaches, a tractor, two cars and a pickup van and kidnapped all on board.

The vehicles were on way from Thall to Kurram Agency. Two Tesco trailers were on way back to Peshawar after unloading electric pylons when gunmen set one of them on fire. One of the victims who managed to escape kidnapping told a section of the press that the kidnappers struck in police uniforms. He added that most of the kidnapped persons belonged to Baggan and Khoidakhel areas of lower Kurram. Local MP Mufti Janan told the press that he was trying to be in touch with the kidnappers who appeared to be from Kurram. He said he was making efforts to get the kidnapped persons – including women and children – freed as early as possible.

For security reasons and sectarian tensions, the road to Parachinar continues to stand closed for a period extending from two to three years. In order to reach their villages, the people living in upper parts of Kurram have to travel through Afghanistan thus spending more money and time. Out of fear, many young students belonging to this area have sought admissions to universities in Lahore, Karachi and Quetta and their only contact with their anxious parents is by cell phones provided the networks happen to be operative in that sensitive corridor.

According to some reports, local Taliban expressed their displeasure with the fact that political administration had not taken them on board regarding the ongoing peace talks in Kurram Agency. In a pamphlet, they said that no peace parleys could succeed without their participation. They said that if the government kept them out of the process, they would kidnap anyone who entered Kurram Agency to take part in the peace negotiations. Meanwhile, leaders of Taliban in Mingora continued to surrender to security forces after the government issued a deadline to those militants who had gone underground.

In a separate development, 13 to 15 deaths were reported from Mangal Bagh Kandao area in Tirah Valley. Political administration in Landi Kotal and the security forces said that the deaths resulted from clashes between the Taliban and the Lashkar-i-Islam fighters while unconfirmed reports said that the casualties occurred due to the missiles fired from the drone planes. This was said to be the first time that drone planes were used in this area.

One may be excused for switching from the narration of physical violence to that of the psychological kind but literary circles in City expressed their sense of shock and surprise over reports that Indian poet Javed Akhtar on Saturday received threats to his life. It was not initially clear who precisely was against the poet but his blunt way of speaking his mind on cultural, political and even religious matters often led to controversies. Son of Safia-Jan Nisar Akhtar writers’ duo, Javed Akhtar shot to prominence when film actress Shabana Azmi (highly liberated daughter of Shaukat-Kaifi Azmi duo) became his second wife.