Title: FBI sets up 44 offices in Pakistan
Author:  
Publication: Intelligence Online
Date: May 8, 2002
URL: http://www.intelligenceonline.net/allintelligencefull.asp?recno=921&id=21309212052121

 7 May 2002: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has set up 44 offices in Pakistan and 12 offices along the sensitive Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the last two months to seize Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, top diplomats said.

The FBI has also brought equipment worth $4 billion that include communication systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, night-vision radars and satellite-based systems in addition to sniffer dogs.

The FBI has a control room in Jalalabad and another in a Lahore suburb to monitor the activities of fundamentalist outfits, Al Qaeda cadres, Taliban fighters and several terrorists connected with the 11-September 2001 attack on America, diplomats said.

Diplomats said that the FBI offices in Pakistan are functioning as private local firms engaged in export-import and as joint-venture establishments producing consumer goods.

The FBI wanted to set up about 200 offices to run day-to-day operations to cover fundamentalist and terrorist activities.

But General Pervez Musharraf was fearful about granting permission for so many FBI offices in view of the referendum and to not provoke the all-powerful Jamait Islami with which he entered into a pact later, diplomats said.

Former Pakistan army chief General Aslam Beg and ex-ISI chief Lieutenant-General Javed Nasir have already publicised 16-17 FBI offices in Pakistan to provoke public opposition to them.

Initially, the FBI had demanded to set up 200 offices with signboards, security and Pakistani military and police officials deputing for them.

On 15 March, General Musharraf told US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld about his inability to grant such permission but readily agreed to the setting up of FBI offices all across Pakistan.

Pakistan has also signed a mutual bilateral pact with the US about fighting and neutralising terrorists under a joint working-group programme.

The FBI can establish offices and take assistance from Pakistani agencies under the programme.

The FBI has been shipping its equipment into Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In the last two months it has set up 44 offices in Pakistan mostly in Punjab and the North West Frontier Province.

Now it is planning to put up a few offices in Sind and Baluchistan.

The FBI is also closely working with the US Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and National Reconnaissance Organisation.

US special forces are providing security cover to the FBI in Pakistan.

The FBI has also set up 12 offices in Afghanistan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and it is monitoring operations from Jalalabad, Kandahar and Khost.