Assassination in Pakistan: Is Blackwater Involved with US Military Hit Squads?

Jeremy Scahill, author of the breakthrough book on Blackwater in Iraq, now casts an eye on the possible involvement of the company, renamed Xe, in the US military's covert operations in Pakistan. He writes in The Nation:

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

Coming Soon to Your Country: US Government “Hit Squads”?

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke toThe Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country. Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."

"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."

The Counterterrorism Tag Team in Karachi

The covert JSOC program with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater's presence in Pakistan is "not really visible, and that's why nobody has cracked down on it," said the source. Blackwater's operations in Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified Defense contracts. "It's Blackwater via JSOC, and it's a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis." The main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center. "It's a very rudimentary operation," says the source. "I would compare it to [CIA] outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts. It's very bare bones, and that's the point."

Blackwater's work for JSOC in Karachi is coordinated out of a Task Force based at Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan, according to the military intelligence source. While JSOC technically runs the operations in Karachi, he said, it is largely staffed by former US special operations soldiers working for a division of Blackwater, once known as Blackwater SELECT, and intelligence analysts working for a Blackwater affiliate, Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which is owned by Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince. The military source said that the name Blackwater SELECT may have been changed recently. Total Intelligence, which is run out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia, is staffed by former analysts and operatives from the CIA, DIA, FBI and other agencies. It is modeled after the CIA's counterterrorism center. In Karachi, TIS runs a "media-scouring/open-source network," according to the source. Until recently, Total Intelligence was run by two former top CIA officials, Cofer Black and Robert Richer, both of whom have left the company. In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the former Blackwater executive. "They are running most of their work through TIS because the other two [names] have such a stain on them," he said. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesperson, denied that TIS or any other division or affiliate of Blackwater has any personnel in Pakistan.

The US military intelligence source said that Blackwater's classified contracts keep getting renewed at the request of JSOC. Blackwater, he said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former Blackwater executive, "The politics that go with the brand of BW is somewhat set aside because what you're doing is really one military guy to another." Blackwater's first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified "black" operations. "With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above 'secret'--even though you have no business doing so," said the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that "do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of trust," he added. "Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That's exactly what it is: a circle of love." Blackwater, therefore, has access to "all source" reports that are culled in part from JSOC units in the field. "That's how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors," said the source. "We have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers don't unless they ask."

According to the source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have "conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up," he said, adding, "They have a sizable force in Pakistan--not for any nefarious purpose if you really want to look at it that way--but to support a legitimate contract that's classified for JSOC." Blackwater's Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said. The source is not sure when the arrangement with JSOC began, but he says that a spin-off of Blackwater SELECT "was issued a no-bid contract for support to shooters for a JSOC Task Force and they kept extending it." Some of the Blackwater personnel, he said, work undercover as aid workers. "Nobody even gives them a second thought."

The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater/JSOC Karachi operation is referred to as "Qatar cubed," in reference to the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. "This is supposed to be the brave new world," he says. "This is the Jamestown of the new millennium and it's meant to be a lily pad. You can jump off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the border, you can jump sideways, you can jump northwest. It's strategically located so that they can get their people wherever they have to without having to wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is convoluted. They don't have to deal with that because they're operating under a classified mandate."

In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. "That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don't know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan," he said. "So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?"

Read rest of article....

Iran : Why Keep On Analysing a "Dysfunctional" Government?

An EA reader intervened yesterday, "I am not sure why we are consumed and analyze every word (official or unofficial) by every member of this dysfunctional government."

It's a fair point that made me think. The obvious response is "well, that's what I do", whether the government in the analytic crosshairs is in Tehran or Washington or London. But, after 5 1/2 months of watching and trying to assess the state of play inside Iran's corridors of power, the inevitable question is whether that attention makes any difference.

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So here's my answer, beyond that of academia or journalism: if this Government had established legitimacy amongst most Iranians, we could probably pack up and go home, at least on the issue of whether there would be significant change within the Islamic Republic.

In my opinion, however, it hasn't. That's not only the case with respect to the Green movement and its well of silent supporters, it's also the case within the Iranian establishment. It's precisely because a lot of those "every words" point to dysfunction, in the sense of establishing and maintaining power, that they deserve attention.

Ironically, where this government continues to function, haphazardly but still with consequences, is in the attempt to crush the challenge from outside. The arrests of students, the continued display of the "foreign intrigue" banner, and the disruption of communications both point to a regime which is far from impotent and one which is far from settled.

Perhaps more importantly, even the swinging of the fist brings further tensions. So Iran's ministries fight over whether to maintain indefinite punishment or offer a sign of "legal" process, compromising on the prison sentences plus heavy bail for reformist leaders.

Meanwhile, with legitimacy far from established, the President faces challenges that walk hand-in-hand with "dysfunction". This morning, we are already picking up on a running battle between Ali Reza Zamani, the member of Parliament who decided to offer "revelations" about possible manipulations of the election and to trash the National Unity Plan, and the former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi. Seems that Zamani is arguing that the Kahrizak Prison scandal is due to Mortazavi's policy of shipping troublemakers to a facility which would become notorious for detainee abuse. And Mortazavi, perceiving --- with some justification --- that someone beyond Zamani may be lining him up as the "scapegoat" for post-election injustices --- is responding that he is not responsible. The bigger question is whether he tries to name those who he thinks are to blame.

Because Mortazavi is still nominally a Deputy Prosecutor General in Iran's judiciary. That's a judiciary which is in a running battle with the Revolutionary Guard over who administers justice in Iran. It's a judiciary headed by Sadegh Larijani, who is also the brother of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani. The same Ali Larijani who now appears to be making another run at curbing, if not toppling, President Ahmadinejad. The Ali Larijani who may or may not represent the Supreme Leader in his statements but who definitely is now offering political cover to former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. The same Hashemi Rafsanjani who may now be calculating his own re-emergence on the political scene, whether or not that is linked to a National Unity Plan.

Another reader writes, "Those mixed messages....It's gotta wear ya down after a while." I appreciate the concern but the danger is not that I'm worn down --- I'll keep on keeping on.

The issue instead is whether the Iranian Government is being worn down by months of not only mixed messages but of scheming, bickering, and of course facing the unending challenge on the streets and in the universities. That's not to say that, if dysfunction turns to crumbling, it will be a Green victory. Take your choice: the Revolutionary Guard moving into the political turmoil to lead from the front, rather than stand alongside the President. A show of "unity" which brings a Larijani or a Rafsanjani to centre stage. A Supreme Leader making new alliances to maintain his own hold on velayat-e-faqih.

So it's a range of possibilities rather than a certainty, either that President Ahmadinejad's legitimacy has been secured or that his demise has been confirmed. Those possibilities lie not only in the dramatic shows of resistance but inside the mixed signals that rise up from the supposed seats of power in Iran.

And so I keep on analysing....

Latest Iran Video: Iran's Students Speak to Counterparts Around the World

"Iranian students have learned that academic freedoms cannot be obtained without creating democracy in the wider society."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKaG0e_Zjo4[/youtube]

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1910 GMT: Prosecuting Journalists. Reporters without Borders has published a summary of latest news on journalists who have been convicted and arrested (and even one who was released).

1900 GMT: Some Good News for Mahmoud. President Ahmadinejad and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, signed 13 cooperation agreements on trade, energy, stocks and banking, agriculture, news agenices, technology, culture, and visa requirements.

1735 GMT: Mortazavi Mystery Over? After days of rumours that he was in Evin Prison, former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi has appeared at the memorial service for Ali Kordan, the former Minister of Interior who died this weekend.

1725 GMT: Isolating Rafsanjani? Division of opinion here amongst EA staff: one colleague is saying Hashemi Rafsanjani is a spent force while another is arguing strongly that "the Shark" is far from finished and about to make another move.

If the latter, those in the regime opposed to Rafsanjani (and possibly worried about the possibility of his working in combination with Ali Larijani) will try to block it. Having dismissed him from the rota for Friday Prayers in Tehran and the Qods Day Prayer, authorities are now taking away the Eid al-Adha Prayer from Rafsanjani and giving it to Ahmad Khatami.

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1715 GMT: Back from teaching break to find that Mousavi activist Majid Zamani has been released on bail.

1335 GMT: Your Daily University Demonstration. Video is now in of Monday's protest at Qazvin University; we've posted it in a separate entry.

1320 GMT: Atrianfar Sentenced. A reliable Iranian activist reports that journalist Mohammad Atrianfar's sentence, passed this weekend, was six years in jail and that he --- like former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi and student organisation leader Ahmad Zeidabadi --- has been released on bail while the sentence is appealed.

The same source claims that student activist Atafeh Nabavi has been sentenced to four years.

1230 GMT: A Persian-language site has published the names of more than 70 students who have been detained recently by the regime.

1100 GMT: Mr Smith Gets It Right. Back from a research seminar on Chomsky to find that Iran's Foreign Ministry has opened the door a bit on the talks on uranium enrichment:

Iran is not opposed to sending its low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad but wants 100 percent guarantees of receiving higher-enriched fuel in return for a medical research reactor...."Nobody in Iran ever said that we are against sending 3.5 percent-enriched uranium abroad," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. "If we say we are looking for 100 percent guaranteees, it means that we want 3.5 percent enriched uranium to be sent out under such circumstances that we make sure that we will receive the 20 percent fuel."

That statement seems to bear out the analysis from EA's Mr Smith, offered last week: "[Iran's proposed] arrangement would allay Iranian fears that its uranium supply might be held indefinitely by some foreign party, including Russia."

0840 GMT: Today's Bang the War Drum Moment. The Guardian of London reaches far this morning in its presentation of all shades of opinion. Benny Morris, once a good historian and now a loud polemicist, wrings his hands over an Israeli military attack on Iran: "Obama will soon have to decide whether to give Israel a green light, and how brightly it will shine."

I think Morris would like the missiles to fly but he's passed the buck to the US President because of...

...the likely devastating repercussions –-- regional and global. These will probably include massive rocketing of Israel's cities and military bases by the Iranians and Hezbollah (from Lebanon), and possibly by Hamas (from Gaza). This could trigger land wars in Lebanon and Gaza as well as a protracted long-range war with Iran. It could see terrorism by Iranian agents against Israeli (and Jewish) targets around the world; a steep increase in world oil prices, which will rebound politically against Israel; and Iranian action against American targets in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf. More generally, Islamist terrorism against western targets could only grow.

0830 GMT: As for Dissent.... In this morning's New York Times, Robert Worth picks up on several developments in recent weeks to summarise the regime's efforts to defeat the opposition:

Stung by the force and persistence of the protests, the government appears to be starting a far more ambitious effort to discredit its opponents and re-educate Iran’s mostly young and restive population. In recent weeks, the government has announced a variety of new ideological offensives.

It is implanting 6,000 Basij militia centers in elementary schools across Iran to promote the ideals of the Islamic Revolution, and it has created a new police unit to sweep the Internet for dissident voices. A company affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards acquired a majority share in the nation’s telecommunications monopoly this year, giving the Guards de facto control of Iran’s land lines, Internet providers and two cellphone companies. And in the spring, the Revolutionary Guards plan to open a news agency with print, photo and television elements.

The government calls it “soft war,” and Iran’s leaders often seem to take it more seriously than a real military confrontation.

0815 GMT: Rooz Online are pressing the idea of co-operation between Ali Larijani and Hashemi Rafsanjani against the President. An analysis has highlighted Larijani's defense of Rafsanjani as a "pillar of the revolution" and, as we have in a separate entry, contrasted this with a view of Ali Reza Zakani's speech on the election and the National Unity Plan as an attack on Larijani.

0730 GMT: The US View of the Green Movement. Over the last two weeks, we have had intense debate over Washington's perception, inside and outside the US Government, of the Iranian opposition. Amongst this was a discussion of how the American elites might view filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, with his recent talk at the Carnegie Endowment, as the spokesman for the Green Wave.

Interesting then to see Robin Wright, one of the top US-based journalists on Iran and the Middle East, highlight Makhmalbaf's speech and declare, with one quick qualification, "Iran's Green Movement Reaches Out to U.S."

0720 GMT: Nuclear Rhetoric or a Powerful Signal? Fars News' English-language site is putting a clear message on top of Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi's comments on Sunday: "Leader Has Final Say on Iran-US Talks". Mohammadi said in a roundtable at Tehran's Amir Kabir University:

The negotiation with the US is not possible without the permission by Imam and the Leader, and any kind of talks with the US must be permitted by the Supreme Leader. No Iranian President or Foreign Minister has had or will have the permission to act on establishment of relations with the US.

So is Mohammadi's declaration just the formal reiteration that Ayatollah Khamenei is atop the Iranian system? Is it a reassurance that any show of engagement with the US and Iranian proposals have the backing of the Supreme Leader? Or is this a message to Ahmadinejad and pro-deal allies to step away from the discussions?

0710 GMT: The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has stepped up its line of US and Pakistani support of the Baluch insurgent group Jundallah, including last month's deadly suicide bombing in Baluchistan.

Addressing IRGC commanders in Isfahan, Brigadier General Gholam-Reza Soleimani said the US Central Intelligence Agency has been spending millions of dollars in its campaign against the Islamic Republic: "The CIA makes a contribution of more than one billion dollar each year to Pakistan's intelligence agency (Inter-Service Intelligence) as part of a campaign to eliminate individuals with anti-U.S. mentalities." He added that there was evidence of ISI and US involvement in many terrorist incidents in Iran, including the October bombing that claimed several IRGC commanders amongst more than 40 dead: "There exists documented evidence of links between (Abdolmalek) Rigi's terrorist group (Jundallah) and the CIA."

Latest Iran Video: Protest at Qazvin University (23 November)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6OLi035Hoo[/youtube]

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