Blackwater presence in Pakistan? US denies
Washington/Islamabad: Operatives of US private security contractor Blackwater are engaged in a secret programme to eliminate suspected Taliban and al Qaeda members
in Pakistan, a media report said today, prompting a strong rejection from the US which described it as "baseless".
An investigative report in the latest issue of American
magazine The Nation said that Blackwater is running a secret
programme from a base in Karachi that plans targeted
assassinations of Taliban operatives and other sensitive
actions in Pakistan.
US embassy spokesman in Islamabad, Rick Snelsire, said
the report was "baseless" and the US government was not
running any secret base anywhere in Pakistan.
Assertions made in the article about "US government
collusion with Blackwater or any other contracting firm are...
baseless and false," Snelsire said.
"There is no secret operating base in Karachi or anywhere
else in Pakistan being run, occupied, or otherwise operated by
US military personnel of any command or organisation," he
said.
The article had contended that an elite wing of
Blackwater planned the targeted assassinations of suspected
Taliban and al Qaida operatives and other sensitive actions
inside Pakistan at a "covert forward operating base run by the
US Joint Special Operations Command" in Karachi.
PTI