WASHINGTON — The American arrested in Pakistan after shooting two men at a crowded traffic stop was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country, according to U.S. government officials.
Working from a safe house in the eastern city of Lahore, the detained U.S. contractor, Raymond Allen Davis, a retired Special Forces soldier, carried out scouting and other reconnaissance missions as a security officer for CIA case officers and technical experts conducting surveillance operations, the officials said.
Davis’ arrest and detention, which came after what U.S. officials have described as a botched robbery attempt, has inadvertently pulled back the curtain on a web of covert U.S. operations inside Pakistan, part of a secret war run by the CIA. It has exacerbated already frayed relations between the U.S. intelligence agency and its Pakistani counterpart, created a political dilemma for the pro-U.S. Pakistani government and further threatened the stability of the country, which has the world’s fastest growing nu-clear arsenal.
Without describing Davis’ mission or intelligence affiliation, President Barack Obama last week made a public plea for his release. Meanwhile, there has been a flurry of private phone calls to Pakistan from Leon E. Panetta, the CIA director, and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all intended to persuade the Pakistanis to release the secret operative. Davis has worked for years as a CIA contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide, the private security firm (now called Xe) that Pakistanis have long viewed as symbolizing a culture of American gunslinging overseas.
The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold information about Davis’ ties to the agency at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk. Several foreign news organizations have disclosed some aspects of Davis’ work with the CIA.
On Monday, U.S. officials lifted their request to withhold publication. George Little, a CIA spokesman, declined to comment specifically on the Davis matter, but said in a statement: “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.”
Since the United States isnot at war in Pakistan, the U.S. military is largely restricted from operating in the country. So the CIA has taken on an expanded role, operating armed drones that kill militants inside the country and running covert operations, sometimes without the knowledge of the Pakistanis.
Several U.S. and Pakistani officials said that the CIA team in Lahore with which Davis worked was tasked with tracking the movements of various Pakistani militant groups including Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a particularly violent group that Pakistan uses as a proxy force against India but that the United States considers a threat to allied troops in Afghanistan.For the Pakistanis, such spying inside their country is an extremely delicate issue, particularly since Lashkar has long-standing ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.
The officials gave various accounts of the makeup of the covert task force and of Davis, who at the time of his arrest was carrying a Glock pistol, a long-range wireless set, a small telescope and a headlamp.
Even before his arrest, Davis’ CIA affiliation was known to Pakistani authorities, who keep close tabs on the movements of Americans. 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.
According to that application, Davis carried a U.S. diplomatic passport and was listed as “administrative and technical staff,” a category that typically grants diplomatic immunity to its holder.
“We still believe earnestly that Mr. Davis is a member of the administrative and technical staff of the embassy in Islamabad and entitled to full immunity from criminal prosecution and should not be arrested or detained,“ State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. “We will continue to work with Pakistan to resolve any differences on this issue.”
Crowley also said the U.S. was deeply concerned about Davis’ safety while in custody and reminded Pakistan that it was responsible for ensuring his well-being.
U.S. 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.
As Davis languishes in a jail cell in Lahore, new details are emerging of what happened in a dramatic daytime scene onthe streets of central Lahore, a sprawling city, on Jan. 27.
By the U.S. account, Davis stopped his car at a crowded intersection. Two Pakistani men brandishing weapons hopped off motorcycles and approached. Davis killed them with the Glock pistol he was carrying. U.S. officials insisted the act was in self-defense against armed robbers.
But on Sunday, the text of the Lahore Police Department’s crime report was published in English by The Daily Times, and it offered a somewhat different account.
According to that report, Davis told the police that after shooting the two men, he stepped out of the car to take photographs of one of them, then called the U.S. Consulate in Lahore for help.
But the report also said that the victims were shot several times in the back, a detail that some Pakistani officials say proves the killings were murder.
By this account, after firing at the men through his windshield, Davis stepped out of the car and continued firing. The report said Davis then got back in his car and “managed to escape” but the police gave chase and “overpowered” him at a traffic circle a short distance away.
In a bizarre twist that has further infuriated the Pakistanis, a third man was killed when an unmarked Toyota Land Cruiser racing to Davis’ rescue drove the wrong way down a one-way street and ran over a motorcyclist, killing him.
The Pakistani Foreign Office, generally considered to work under the guidance of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, has declined to grant Davis what it calls the “blanket immunity” from prosecution that diplomats enjoy.
In a setback for Washington, the Lahore High Court last week gave the Pakistani government until March 14 to decide on the issue of Davis’ immunity. The pro-U.S. government led by President Asif Ali Zardari has resisted strenuous pressure from the Obama administration to release Davis to the United States. Some militant and religious groups have demanded that Davis be tried in the Pakistani courts and hanged.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi al-Qaida operative was believed to be one of 15 militants killed in two U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt along the Afghan border Monday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The officials said the man, identified as Abu Zaid al-Iraqi, handled the terrorist group’s finances in Pakistan. He was not known to be on any published U.S. lists of wanted al-Qaida leaders, and U.S. officials do not normally acknowledge the existence of the CIA-led missile program or talk about who is being killed.
Information for this article was contributed by Mark Mazzetti, Ashley Parker, Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt, Ismail Khan and Waqar Gillani of The New York Times and by Matthew Lee, Ishtiaq Mahsud, Rasool Dawar, Adam Goldman and Kimberly Dozier of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/22/2011