Closed Diplomatic Posts To Reopen Sunday

The State Department Spokesperson - and that awkward gender-neutral word "spokesperson" is indeed her official job title, although I'll be damned if I can see why it's any better than "spokeswoman" - Jen Psaki issued an update on the status of Embassies and Consulates this afternoon:

On Sunday, August 11, the Department of State will re-open 18 of the 19 embassies and consulates that were closed recently. Our embassy in Sanaa, Yemen will remain closed because of ongoing concerns about a threat stream indicating the potential for terrorist attacks emanating from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Our consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, which closed yesterday due to a separate credible threat to that facility, will also remain closed.

We will continue to evaluate the threats to Sanaa and Lahore and make subsequent decisions about the re-opening of those facilities based on that information. We will also continue to evaluate information about these and all of our posts and to take appropriate steps to best protect the safety of our personnel, American citizens traveling overseas, and visitors to our facilities.

And so, with no more explanation of the threats - or the threat streams to use another bit of annoying jargon - than when they were closed a week ago, 18 of the 19 affected NEA and AF posts will reopen.

As for Sanaa and Lahore, well, sometimes a cooling off period or a safety shutdown is a good idea. In fact, we probably should close those posts for no reason at all from time to time, just to be unpredictable and make our people a moving target.    

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In Memoriam: 18 Years Ago In Karachi, Pakistan

Post-attack photo from State Department publication

On March 8, 1995, an unarmored U.S. Consulate Karachi shuttle van transporting employees was blocked in rush hour traffic and then fired upon by two men armed with AK–47 rifles. Two American employees were killed - Jackie van Landingham, a secretary, and Gary C. Durell, a communications technician - and a third was wounded.

There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack may have been in retaliation for the arrest one month earlier in Islamabad of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the main perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Despite an FBI investigation and a $2 million reward for information, the attackers were never arrested. 

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Peshawar - U.S. Consulate Employees Attacked By Suicide Bomber

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

Once again, U.S. government employees overseas have survived a terrorist attack thanks to the heavily-armored vehicle in which they were riding. Dollar for dollar, the State Department's armored car program may have prevented more deaths and injuries than any other physical countermeasure out there.

Note the vehicle frame is largely intact, although burned-out

Also note the distance between bomb crater and vehicle

The most complete news story on today's attack that I've seen so far is from the New York Times (here):

There were conflicting reports about the number and nationality of the casualties. Pakistani officials said that at least two people were killed and at least 13 were injured, including two police officers. The United States Embassy in Islamabad confirmed the attack and said in a statement that two Americans and two Pakistani employees of the consulate were injured. It denied early reports that an American had been killed.

A senior Pakistani government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that an American backup vehicle immediately retrieved the four who were wounded inside the S.U.V. and took them to the consulate. The official said two Pakistanis were killed outside the vehicle.

-- snip --

The American vehicle had left the heavily guarded and fortified consulate building and was passing a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees guest house on Abdara Road when it was rammed by a vehicle containing at least 200 pounds of explosives, according to police officials. A thick plume of smoke rose over the site after the explosion that could be seen a mile away. The blast left a five-foot-wide crater in the road.

The last time a U.S. consulate vehicle in Peshawar was bombed was May of 2011 (here), and all employees survived that one, too. In that incident, the bomb was planted along the side of the road and detonated remotely when the consulate vehicle passed by.

Today's attack used a suicide bomber to drive an improvised explosive device directly at our vehicle and detonate against it while both vehicles were moving. That escalation in tactics indicates that the Taliban - who are the most likely culprits, although no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack - are capable of learning lessons and adapting to what they perceive of U.S. government countermeasures.

Various Pakistani reports have added interesting nuggets of information beyond what was in the NYT's story:

-- The attack took place at about 9 AM this morning
-- The consulate vehicle was being escorted by three police vehicles
-- The vehicle was en route from the consulate to the nearby American club, according to one of the escorting police drivers
-- An official of the police bomb disposal squad was quoted saying the vehicle bomb was assembled out of military munitions (mortar shells); if so, then it had much higher explosive force than a typical improvised device
-- The bomb was reported to be 100 kilos (220 pounds) in size; such estimates are highly speculative, however, I can believe it was that big by the distance that the U.S. vehicle appears to have been blown off the road
-- The Pakistani driver of the consulate vehicle told local news media that he was knocked unconscious by the blast, but recovered in a few minutes

The tactic of using a suicide bomber against a vehicle in motion is not new. It was used in Karachi in 2006 to attack a U.S. consulate vehicle, killing a U.S. citizen employee, David Foy, who was transiting from his home to the office, as well as a locally engaged employee who was driving, and a Pakistani Army Ranger who was manning a checkpoint outside the consulate. That was the last fatal attack on a U.S. government employee in Pakistan.

The same tactic was used in 2002, again in Karachi, to kill eleven French naval engineers who were in transit from their hotel to their workplace.

More details about today's attack will eventually be released, I'm sure. But for now this looks like a favorable outcome, and one that we can credit to the RSO's security programs, as well as to the Department's huge investment in armored vehicles.

Note: If you are looking for local news coverage of today's incident, this Pakistani Geo TV clip has the most comprehensive video coverage of the immediate aftermath of the bombing:

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HRC To Pakistan: Please Accept My Apology $1.2 Billion

So the story goes that Hillary has finally apologized to Pakistan's Foreign Minister for our errant airstrike of last November that killed 24 Pakistani troops, and Pakistan's leadership, now sufficiently placated, has in return allowed our convoys to resume transiting their country to support our troops in Afghanistan.

The apology was delicately worded to avoid using the word "apology."

“We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military ... We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.”

That was all it took to get Pakistan to end its blockade of our convoys? Yes, that plus our resumption of annual payments to Pakistan of 1.2 billion.

Yesterday's The Cable broke down the back story of Hillary's apology, which is considerably more complex than a matter of polite manners:

Tuesday's announcement came after months of protracted and often excruciating negotiations between the two governments. On the U.S. side of the table, the process was led by Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides, who was in Pakistan Monday, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs Peter Lavoy, and Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman. ISAF Commander Gen. John Allen also traveled to Pakistan twice over the past two weeks, once at the invitation of Pakistani Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and again as part of larger discussions regarding the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

The internal U.S. process that led to today's remarks by Clinton was extensive -- and rocky at times. It has been well reported that the State Department, especially soon-to-be-former U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter, urged the White House to apologize long ago but was overruled due to objections from the Defense Department, where officials were angered by the fact that the Pakstani military accused the U.S. military of killing the soldiers intentionally.

Three administration sources confirmed to The Cable that between December and early spring, the National Security Council convened at least 8 separate high-level meetings to debate the apology, and ultimately, the White House earlier this year decided to issue one.

The Pakistani government in early Spring asked the White House not to issue the apology because the Pakistani parliament was in the middle of its comprehensive review of the bilateral relationship. Then, following deadly attacks in Kabul on NATO forces in April, which were traced back to the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, the White House took the apology off the table.

That's why today's comments by Clinton came as a huge surprise to many Pakistan-watchers. But experts saw in her comments a careful dance that the administration thinks represents a compromise, because Clinton never actually said the word "apology" or "apologize."

"It allows the administration to say to Congress, we didn't ‘apologize,' we said we were ‘sorry,'" said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. He emphasized that discussions about several thorny issues in the relationship are still ongoing.

Asked directly at today's press briefing if the "sorry" comment constituted an "apology," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland wouldn't say that it did. In conjunction with Tuesday's announcement, the Obama administration has agreed to hand over about $1.2 billion to the Pakistanis in Coalition Support Funds (CSF) that were owed but delayed as part of the overall unhappiness between the two governments, two administration sources confirmed. Pakistan, which views the funds as reimbursements the United Sates agreed to pay in exchange for Pakistan's help in fighting the war on terror, argues that America owes it a larger sum.

-- snip --

Getting the CSF funding was always the real goal of the negotiations as far as the Pakistanis were concerned, according to [a former U.S. official who spoke to The Cable]. 

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Pakistani Official Harassment of U.S. Mission Has "Reached New Levels Of Intensity"

U.S. Embassy employee at roadblock in Peshawar, Pakistani news photo

Late this afternoon the State Department released the report of the Office of Inspector General's Compliance Follow-Up Review for Embassy Islamabad and constituent posts in Pakistan. The big take-away is the unprecedented levels of Pakistani official harassment of our mission and its employees.

U.S. official entities operating in Pakistan have long been subjected to unusual, government-initiated obstructionism and harassment. That harassment has reached new levels of intensity, however, after the events of 2011. The embassy describes the harassment as deliberate, willful, and systematic. While other diplomatic missions have experienced similar treatment, the United States is clearly the principal target. The harassment takes many forms: delayed visa issuances; blocked shipments for both assistance programs and construction projects; denials of requests for in-country travel; and surveillance of and interference with mission employees and contractors.

Details of that harassment were redacted before the report was released.

That's a lot of black ink, and it continues for another page and a half. So many details to obscure!

But the OIG report is perfectly clear about another matter: 

Based on its visit, the OIG team would not dispute the characterization of Peshawar in the 2010 inspection report as the most dangerous post in the world.

They have that right.

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U.S. Senate Punishes Pakistan With 1.48 % Cut In Aid

To be precise, it was 1.48141498 percent. How do you like that, Pakistan? Payback's a bitch.

Senate panel cuts Pakistan's aid in response to doctor's conviction:

Senate appropriators unanimously voted Thursday to cut Pakistani aid by $33 million, or $1 million for every year a Pakistani doctor will spend in prison for helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden.

While the cut represents a small fraction of U.S. aid to Pakistan, the 30-0 vote in favor of the amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) highlights the tension between the two countries sparked by Wednesday's sentencing in Pakistan of Shakil Afridi on treason charges by a tribal court.

-- snip --

The cut represents about 4 percent of the $800 million set aside for Pakistan next fiscal year, including $250 million in foreign military aid and another $50 million for Pakistan's counterinsurgency efforts. The original $800 million was already far below the $2.3 billion the Obama administration is requesting for Pakistan.

The $800 million referred to in the article is evidently the Overseas Contingency Operations portion of the total foreign assistance request for Pakistan. Another $1.5 billion or so in annual nonmilitary aid regularly goes to Pakistan under the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009.

See this Congressional Research Service report for lots and lots of details.

So, how much assistance are we giving to Pakistan this year? According to ForeignAssistance.gov, the FY-13 request is $2,227,600,000 in total. Minus that big 33 mil, of course.

Divide the Senate's $33 million penalty by the total of 2 billion 227 million the administration is requesting, and you get 1.48 percent. Or, approximately, a senator's lunch money. If the Pakistani big-shots even notice that bite, I'd be surprised.

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back, Lindsey.

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Declassified Document Of The Week

H/T to Unredacted at the National Security Archive for a very timely find on this week's Document Friday.

It's a State Department INR memo to the SecState dated November 7, 2001, reporting that "urban Pakistanis" polled immediately after 9/11 supported the Taliban regime in Afghanistan at greater levels than before. In fact, almost half of respondents favored increasing support to the Taliban.

The survey was conducted amongst “urban Pakistanis,” beginning “shortly after September 11″ 2001 and “almost all interviews” were conducted before the United States started bombing Afghanistan. In other words, the window that a westerner would assume that Pakistanis would probably have had the absolute lowest amount of support for the Taliban.

Not the case. The survey asked: “As you may know, our [Pakistani] government has been generally supportive of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. In the future, would you like to see our government strengthen its support for the Taliban, reduce its support, or maintain support for the Taliban at about the same level as now?”

The vast majority –46 percent– favored “increasing support for Mullah Omar’s regime.” Only a paltry 14 percent favored reducing support. The INR concluded that the Pakistani public “saw the Taliban more favorably than it had before the September 11 attacks.” And that Pakistanis “believed by a sizable majority that the Taliban are not a threat to stability in the region and that Pakistan’s ties with the Taliban are good.”

In a week when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff accused the Pakistani government of supporting the Afghan Taliban, it is sobering to realize how deep and pervasive popular support for the Taliban runs in Pakistan.

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Flags Made To Be Burned - A New Public Diplomacy Metric?

Protestors like to burn flags, and those flags have to come from somewhere. In Pakistan, that somewhere might be a specialty shop run by an entrepreneur named Syed Mohammed Hussain who has flags to burn. I mean, he makes combustible flags to order:

Syed Mohammed Hussain has seen his one-off experiment [producing Danish flags to be burned] turn into a profitable little sideline as he produces American and Israeli flags to order.

This week brought fresh demand for the Stars and Stripes with a wave of demonstrations against American allegations that Pakistan was using an Afghan insurgent group to wage a proxy war against US forces.

But it all started with protests at caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed printed in a Danish newspaper in 2006. Pakistan witnessed some of the fiercest demonstrations, with two people shot dead.

"I was also very angry about the Danish cartoons but I wouldn't have gone out on the streets myself. Instead I decided to get Danish flags printed," Mr Hussain, who sells his flags for 500 rupees or about £3.50, told The Express Tribune

Word spread fast and he couldn't keep up with the orders.

Today, bulk buyers – looking for more than 100 flags – are given a discount.

And there has been no shortage of business this year as relations with the US have fluctuated between poor and catastrophic.

The killing of Osama bin Laden in May ignited a spate of flag-burning protests. Many Pakistanis were angry that the US could launch a secret, unauthorised raid on Pakistani territory.

Today his storeroom has a selection of western flags, including the Union Flag and French Tricolour, ready to be stamped, trampled or burned.

So here's my idea for a metric of Public Diplomacy success in places like Pakistan: monitor fluctuations in the local demand for U.S. flags.

If Syed Mohammed Hussain's unsold inventory of Stars and Stripes grows, that would be quantifiable good news about the U.S. image in Pakistan. If he has to work overtime to make more product and raises his prices, that would be a leading indicator of a spike in public outrage.

You're welcome, United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy!

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Is Uzbekistan The New Pakistan?

- Google Earth map marked with the Northern Distribution Network, from CSIS.

After breaking up with Pakistan, it looks like we are rushing into a new relationship with Uzbekistan on the rebound. Isn't that always the way?

Both Hillary and Obama chatted up their Uzbek counterparts this week, and Congress is considering increasing our military assistance to Uzbekistan provided that it can find a way to overlook the regime's egregious human rights abuses and corruption.

The UK Telegraph has a story today on this bad romance:

The past fortnight has seen relations between Islamabad and Washington sink to new lows over allegations that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency was working with the Haqqani network to direct attacks on American targets in Afghanistan.

The crisis, the latest in a turbulent year, has seen both countries scrambling to build up alternative regional alliances.

However, more than a third of supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan pass through Pakistan, giving Islamabad a strong bargaining position.

A White House official said President Obama had discussed sending more supplies through the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan during a phone call with the country's president, Islam Karimov.

At the same time, Hillary Clinton met her Uzbek counterpart on Thursday, and Congress is considering legislative changes that would allow more military aid to the Central Asian despite its poor human rights record.

"We value our relationship with Uzbekistan. They have been very helpful to us with respect to the Northern Distribution Network," said Mrs Clinton.

That route winds its way through Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia to Afghanistan and has already become more important in the past year as the US began switching supplies from Pakistan's roads.

But closer ties will anger human rights organisations which have protested proposed plans to send military aid to Uzbekistan for the first time since 2004, when funds were choked off as penalty for the country's poor human rights record.

Twenty groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group, signed a letter of protest sent to Mrs Clinton before her meeting with Mr Ganiev.

"We call on you to stand behind your strong past statements regarding human rights abuses in Uzbekistan," the letter said.

"We strongly urge you to oppose passage of the law and not to invoke this waiver."

As bad as the Uzbekistan human rights situation may be, Congress seems to be at least as concerned about corruption. According to Eurasianet:

Capitol Hill wants the Pentagon to be more transparent in the way it manages the Northern Distribution Network ... The US Senate in particular has voiced alarm that a lack of oversight over the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) has turned it into a gravy train of graft for Uzbekistan’s ruling elite.

“The [U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations] is concerned with reports of pervasive corruption in Uzbekistan and therefore expects to be informed of public and private entities that receive support, directly or indirectly, from United States Government funds used to pay the costs of Northern Distribution Network supply routes through that country,” a Senate report on foreign aid bill S. 1601 states.

-- snip --

A well-placed source in Washington, DC, indicated to EurasiaNet.org that the use of subcontracted local firms on DoD contracts is an area of intense interest within some branches of the US government. Some officials worry that Uzbek political and security elites may be profiting from below-the-radar partnerships with international firms.

Another source familiar with Pentagon contracting practices in Central Asia alleges that Defense Department planners are aware that some US military contractors have cultivated relationships with companies that have been linked to friends and relatives of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

“Pentagon logistics certainly knew some contractors were using companies controlled by the Karimov family to perform aspects of their contracts in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. But it's very clear they didn't view this as a negative, just the opposite," the source said.

Maybe we shouldn't rush into this. Do these rebound relationships ever work out?

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That's An Excellent Point, LTC Peters

While channel-surfing TV news programs this morning, I caught a few seconds of the retired Army officer and writer/columnist Ralph Peters commenting on the Afghanistan situation and how it forces us into a highly troubled relationship with Pakistan.

Quoting him from memory, he said this:

“When I went to Command and General Staff College, I would have flunked out if I proposed to put 100,000 troops at the end of a single supply line that ran through a thousand miles of hostile territory.”

That is an excellent point. After ten years, we still haven't found an alternative to routing all our Afghan-bound truck convoys from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass, thereby putting ourselves at the mercy of Pakistan's ISI and its Taliban allies. Shouldn't the CGSC have revoked some diplomas by now?

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Banned From Peshawar (Cause For Mixed Feelings, I'm Sure)

There was another incident of official harassment of our embassy personnel in Pakistan yesterday. This time two employees were denied permission to enter Peshawar.

I don't know about them, but I've been thrown out of better places. Being barred from Peshawar must be kind of a mixed bag - one part harassment and one part relief.

It sounds like all parties followed the standard drill. For the Americans: stay inside the car, hold your passports up to the window, call the consulate for assistance, stay put while negotiations go on. For the Pakistanis: call Police HQ, call ISI, call Express 24/7 News so they can get film of this, demand the Americans get out of the car, demand the Americans produce passports, visas, diplomatic identity cards, letters from the Foreign Ministry, birth certificates and mothers maiden names, Letters of Transit signed by General De Gaulle, and anything else they can think of to drag this out for all its worth.

From the Express Tribune, US, Norwegian citizens barred from entering Peshawar:

Two United States (US) citizens and a Norwegian have been disallowed from entering Peshawar after they were found to be travelling without a No Objection Certificate (NOC), Express 24/7 reported on Thursday.

The foreigners were taken into custody at the Peshawar Interchange on the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway and were sent back to Islamabad.

Sources have said the foreigners were carrying valid visas and passports, but did not have an NOC for travelling to Peshawar. There are also reports of an automatic rifle being kept inside the vehicle.

The police department was given clear instructions from the Foreign Office and Interior Ministry to stop the foreigners from entering Peshawar if they did not have valid papers, sources said.

From other Pakistani press and blog accounts, it seems that the U.S. Embassy employees and the Norwegian citizens were in two separate vehicles, not traveling together.

The Peshawar Interchange is a toll plaza on the highway that runs between there and Islamabad, and it's the point where traffic exits the highway and enters Peshawar.

What's a "No Objection Certificate?" According to a Pakistan Times story, it's the explicit written permission that is required by the Pakistani government before foreign diplomats may travel to remote areas:

ISLAMABAD: Visits of foreign diplomats to remote areas and country side without proper No Objection Certificate (NOC) from concerned authorities especially on outskirts of Prohibited Areas’ is not allowed without permission, a government statement said.

-- snip --

Foreign diplomats need to strictly abide by the laws of the land and must get permission for such adventures, the statement added.

I'm not sure exactly where these adventurous outskirts of Prohibited Areas are, or even whether they are announced in advance. Maybe the Foreign Ministry issues a map. Better yet, they could put warning signs right on the roads, the way medieval sea charts were marked "Beyond Here There Be Monsters."

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The Facebookification Of Public Diplomacy In Pakistan

The WaPo has a story today about the eclipse of the old human-contact institution of U.S. Information Service Libraries in Pakistan by the new socially-networked world of public diplomacy. It's odd, but I can't decide whether the author regrets the passing of the Libraries, or is being snarky about them. Anyway, at least she is clear that they were closed for security reasons.

Amid threats, U.S. woos Pakistan from behind walls:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In a city where kind words about anything American are hard to come by, one notable exception is a sand-colored, palm-fringed building formerly known as the American Center.

For two decades, Pakistanis still fondly reminisce, international newspapers were stacked high there, poetry and art were showcased and friendly American diplomats fostered a come-one-and-all vibe. But in 2005, amid rising anti-Americanism and Islamist militancy, the U.S. Embassy-run center in Islamabad became the last in a nationwide network to shut and the diplomats retreated to walled compounds.

The building, which now houses private media outfits, has since become a symbol of the gaping gulf between the United States and Pakistan — and a prime example, critics say, of how security measures at U.S. foreign missions since Sept. 11, 2001, have alienated American diplomats from the populations they most need to court.

Yet U.S. officials say the closures also ushered in a less tactile but more aggressive — and expensive — era in what they call “public diplomacy,” one facilitated by growth in electronic media and a surge in young Pakistanis using it. Largely from behind barbed wire, embassy staffers now wield a multimillion-dollar budget to stimulate debates on Facebook, fund English courses and provide research services to Pakistani students and officials. Most prominently, they are pumping money into programs that send Pakistanis to the United States, in hopes they will return as unofficial American ambassadors.

-- snip --

Pakistan’s freewheeling media regularly spew what one U.S. diplomat called “terrible toxicity” about the United States. Though the U.S. Embassy staff has multiplied in recent years, diplomats rarely roam beyond major cities, or even much within them.

-- snip --

Some U.S. officials echo the concern. “A secure, open-access facility where people can meet and engage is still important,” one official said, adding that the closure of the American centers “hurt human interactions” between Americans and Pakistanis.

Last year, the embassy considered reopening the centers. But U.S. officials said they decided that the security situation in Pakistan, where a muscular Islamist insurgency has struck U.S. targets, meant that any potential structure would be more forbidding — and dangerous — than welcoming.

These days, the U.S. Consulate in Lahore features fuzzy photos of erstwhile American centers on its Facebook page [TSB note: see those fuzzy photos - and memories - on Lahore's Old is Gold contest page]. And U.S. diplomats argue that that page — along with other embassy Facebook pages, which together have 82,000 “fans” and play host to online debates — is one example of how technology fosters a broader American reach than a brick-and-mortar structure could. Through video conferencing, they say, visiting U.S. experts’ lectures have also been beamed to dozens of Pakistani universities.

-- snip --

Sania Zahra, an international relations student researching Saudi Arabia and Iran, said she admired Americans’ democratic values, as well as the organizational skills that, she said, make the Lincoln Corner a tidy refuge. But she said she felt part of a minority.

“The people of Pakistan say the Americans are fighting, they are doing drone attacks,” said Zahra, 25. “And where they are living, they are building high walls.”

There are indeed high walls at all of our diplomatic facilities in Pakistan. As retired Ambassador Ronald Neumann said of Pakistan, "if you're going to have people live in a car bomb-prone place, you are driven to not have a light footprint."

The American Center in Islamabad had been the target of terrorism and political violence several times during those Golden Oldie years of person-to-person public diplomacy. Particularly severe attacks occurred in 1999, when anti-personnel rockets were fired at the building, and again in 1989 when as many as ten thousand demonstrators protesting the publication of the novel Satanic Verses turned violent, broke through the front doors, and set fire to the building while public diplomacy officers were inside. In the latter incident, Pakistani police opened fire to stop the attack, killing six demonstrators literally on the doorstep of the American Center. It was the worst anti-American violence in Pakistan since 1979, when both the chancery in Islamabad and the USIS Library in Lahore were burned by mobs.

1979, 1989, and 1999. What is up with that ten-year cycle?

In 2002, it was decided that the American Center should close for security reasons, first temporarily and then, by 2005, permanently. I contributed in a small way to that decision back then. Although I regretted the necessity, it was apparent to me that there was no feasible way to operate the building with a reasonable level of security for either the staff or the visitors.

The threat environment in Pakistan has only gotten worse since then, and I don't think anyone now sees any prospect of the American Center coming back to Islamabad. However, new types of public diplomacy outreach centers that allow more limited human interaction with the PD audience might very well take its place. I hope they will, even though I'm a troglodyte security guy, because I think that a vital element was lost when public diplomacy retreated into Facebook.

That's right - we're human, too. Hath not a security guy eyes, etc? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

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U.S. Consulate Peshawar Vehicle, Four Employees, Detained At Army Checkpoint

Local news media were present during a stand-off between four consulate employees and Pakistani military and police in Peshawar today. It appears to have been a standard exercise in harassment, with the military stopping and holding one of our vehicles, and our employees refusing to either get out of their car or to move it elsewhere. Once diplomatic identities were established, our employees were free to go.

Here's what the media reported about the four foreigners detained in Peshawar:

PESHAWAR: Army personnel detained four Americans after they were stopped at an army check post in Peshawar. However, they were allowed to leave after almost two hours.

According to Express 24/7 reporter Sumaira Khan, the foreigners travelling in a grey land cruiser were stopped at an army check post opposite the destroyed CID office after they failed to follow protocol.

FC Cantt. released a statement saying they men were released after official confirmation was received verifying the identities of the four men. Their passports and documents were in order.

A police officer on site said that the misunderstanding came about after the American officials failed to follow protocol. Given the current law and order situation, police and army personnel took every precaution to ensure the safety of foreigners in the area.

It was initially believed that these men were members of Blackwater or Xe corporation. The foreigners said they maintained that they were staff of the US consulate and lived in the diplomatic enclave.

It was later verified that the four men in fact belonged to the US embassy in Islamabad and were present lawfully in the country.

The number plate displayed on the back of their car, bearing numbers IDF 7582, was found to be fake.

The car also had another numberplate, one which is normally issued to diplomats, resting on their dashboard bearing numbers CD-64-164.

They refused to talk to either the media or Pakistani security officials present at the scene.

They had failed to follow protocol reserved for foreigners moving in the city.

US officials are supposed to inform police and intelligence officials.

The check post where they were stopped is near Gora Qabristan area of Peshawar and is in close vicinity of the destroyed CID office in Peshawar as well as an SSG paratroopers schools along with residences of FIA and intelligence officials.

[TSB note: the CID office was destroyed in a suicide attack by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan on May 26. It is located on Jamrud Road, very close to our consulate residences. There is nothing at all suspicious about consulate vehicles being there, despite insinuations by the local press about sensitive sites.]

Police and army officials released the men after official confirmation of their links with the US consulate was received. The four men had produced documents including a diplomatic passport, indicating that they were staff of the US consulate. Their visas were valid.

The had locked themselves in their car and were refusing to speak to security officials, waiting for a representative from the US consulate or the embassy.

It was two weeks ago that another consulate vehicle was ambushed with a roadside bomb while traveling in the vicinity of Jamrud Road.

Even without that photo above, I can easily imagine how the tension of living under constant threat from both terrorist groups and our host government's security services is wearing on our employees in Peshawar.

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Another One Bites The Dust

An al-Qaeda commander who planned attacks on U.S. interests in Pakistan is the latest to fall to Predator drones over South Waziristan, the Associate Press reports:

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A top al-Qaida commander and possible replacement for Osama bin Laden was killed in an American drone-fired missile strike close to the Afghan border, the militant group he heads and a Pakistani intelligence official said Saturday.

Ilyas Kashmiri's death is another blow to al-Qaida just over a month after bin Laden was killed by American commandos in a northwest Pakistani army town. Described by U.S. officials as al-Qaida's military operations chief in Pakistan, he was one of five most-wanted militant leaders in the country, accused in a string of bloody attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai massacre.

His death was not confirmed publicly by the United States or Pakistani officials. Verifying who has been killed in the drone strikes is difficult. Initial reports have turned out to be wrong in the past, or are never formally denied or confirmed by authorities here or in the United States.

But a fax from the militant group he was heading — Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami's feared "313 Brigade" — confirmed Kashmiri was "martyred" in the strike at 11:15 p.m. Friday in South Waziristan tribal region. It vowed revenge against America. [TSB note: see the fax here]

-- snip --

The 47-year-old Pakistani, said to be blind in one eye and missing a finger, was one of the country's most accomplished — and vicious — militants. He was so close to al-Qaida's central command that he had been mentioned as a contender for replacing bin Laden.

Indian officials have alleged he was involved in the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed more than 160 people. He has also been named a defendant in an American court over a planned attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

Kashmiri has most recently been linked to last month's 18-hour assault on a naval base in Karachi. He is also accused of masterminding several bloody raids on Pakistan police and intelligence buildings in 2009 and 2010, as well as a failed assassination attempt against then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.

The U.S Department of State says he organized a 2006 suicide bombing against the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed four people, including an American diplomat.

The American diplomat was David Foy, who was accompanied by Iftikhar Ahmed, a local employee of the consulate, when they were ambushed as their car approached the consulate's outer checkpoint. A Pakistani Army Ranger assigned to the checkpoint was also killed.

The U.S. State Department had recently offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the location of Kashmiri.

Do we owe someone some money? If so, that is exactly how I would want my tax money spent.

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Peshawar: Bomb Attack On Consulate Car With No Serious Injuries

State Department employees in Pakistan have another reason to thank the U.S. taxpayer for the enormous investment he has made in heavily armored vehicles for our missions abroad.

This morning, the Taliban ambushed a two-car convoy of consulate employees traveling between home and office, remotely detonating a roadside bomb when the convoy passed nearby. According to local new media, the bomb was about 50 kilos (100 pounds), which is more than large enough to destroy an unhardened vehicle. Happily, our well-protected vehicle sustained only minor damage, and the two employees riding in it were only slightly injured.

The New York Times has this report:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A car bomb aimed at a two-car convoy carrying American consular officials to work exploded Friday morning, but no Americans were killed or seriously injured, a United States Embassy spokesman said.

The attack was the first against Americans since the Navy Seal raid on May 2 that killed Osama bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad.

In a phone call to The Associated Press, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ahsanullah Ahsan, claimed responsibility for the attack.

“We say to the Americans and NATO that we will carry out more deadly attacks, and we can do it,” Mr. Ahsan said in the report.

-- snip --

An American who lives three blocks from the attack said the explosion was “a big blast that shook the earth.” The attack was timed for about 8:30 in the morning, when employees of the consulate regularly drive to work from their homes in the upscale neighborhood of University Town, the American said.

-- snip --

A Pakistani government official said two Americans were slightly injured and that they were riding in a vehicle that belonged to the Regional Security Office, the group responsible for security arrangements for American employees at the consulate.

Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, is considered a relatively high-risk area because it borders the tribal areas where the Pakistani Army has been fighting militants for more than two years.

The last attack against an American in Peshawar was in 2008 when gunmen fired at the vehicle of the American consul-general, Lynne Tracy, as she was traveling to work. She escaped unharmed.

Employees of the consulate were placed under immediate “lockdown” after the attack Friday morning, an American official said.

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U. S. Embassy Employee Briefly Arrested Outside Islamabad, Pakistan

It's not another Raymond Davis case. No one died, and this time our guy's immunity papers seem to have been in order.

The Express Tribune has this report today of a US diplomat arrested outside Rawalpindi:

A US diplomat, arrested by security agencies on the outskirts of Rawalpindi on Saturday for suspicious behavior, was later released by the officials on the request of the interior ministry.

The American diplomat, purportedly called Matthew Bennett, was found near Fateh Jang by ISI and MI personnel who had been watching him for a while.

He was found taking photographs in an area which, according to officials and locals, served as a secret passage for the transportation of sensitive materials to the Khan Research Laboratories at Kahuta [i.e., Pakistan's nuclear weapons research facility].

The area also serves as the transit route and the entry and gathering point for Nato supplies to Afghanistan.

The diplomat was taken to an unidentified location for further investigations by the security personnel.

Officials told The Express Tribune that they recovered advanced gadgets from him, including night-vision goggles, laptop, transmitter and a digital camera. He was later released after officials from interior ministry brought the required documents with them.

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CRS: Congressional Skepticism About Pakistan Has Deepened

The Congressional Research Service has a new report out on Osama bin Laden’s Death: Implications and Considerations. The biggest consideration might be whether or not Congress want to go on funding billions in direct aid to Pakistan.

In the wake of revelations that the world’s most-wanted terrorist had apparently been living for years in a comfortable home in a relatively affluent city and only one kilometer away from Pakistan’s premier military academy, congressional skepticism about the continuation of large aid disbursements to Pakistan has deepened even further. On May 3, 2011, H.R. 1699, the Pakistan Foreign Aid Accountability Act, was introduced in the House. The Act would prohibit future foreign assistance to Pakistan unless the Secretary of State certifies that the Pakistani government was not complicit in hiding OBL. Depending on the course of Pakistan’s future policy statements and levels of cooperation with the United States, Congress may choose to adjust current assistance funding levels. Such funding flows are already hindered by U.S. concerns about corruption and lack of transparency in Pakistan’s implementing partners.

Add complicity in hiding OBL on top of the customary corruption and "lack of transparency," and it sounds like Pakistan has had its three strikes.

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The Hardest Working Man On "K" Street

How would you like to be Pakistan's lobbyist in Washington? That's got to be the hardest job on K Street right now.

He is Mark Siegel, and I see from his professional bio that he has been Pakistan's lobbyist in Washington since 2008, and that he held the same job twice before, from 1988 to 1990, and from 1993 to 1996. Those dates correspond exactly to the terms in office of the current President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, and the two terms that his late wife Benizir Bhutto served as Prime Minister. So, Siegel is basically a crony of the Zardari/Bhutto political dynasty.

Ever since we clipped Osama Bin Laden, Siegel has been spinning for all he's worth (or up to $75,000 a month) to fend off new Congressional interest in cutting the $3 billion in annual aid we give to Pakistan. You may decide for yourself whether Pakistan is getting its money's worth:

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's Washington lobbyists have launched an intense campaign on Capitol Hill to counter accusations that Islamabad was complicit in giving refuge to Osama bin Laden.

Alarmed by lawmakers' demands to cut off billions of dollars of US aid after bin Laden was found living in a Pakistani safe house for six years, President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered a full-court press to quell mounting accusations that it helped the al Qaeda leader avoid capture.

Mark Siegel, a partner in the Washington lobbying firm of Locke Lord Strategies -- which is paid $75,000 a month by the Pakistani government -- said on Thursday he had spoken twice to Zardari since US special forces killed bin Laden on Sunday, and "countless" times to the Pakistani ambassador in Washington.

"They are certainly concerned," Siegel said, adding that suggestions the Pakistani government knew about bin Laden's whereabouts was nothing more than speculation.

Referring to a statement by President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, that there must have been a support system for bin Laden inside Pakistan, Siegel said: "There is no proof that a support system was government-based."

There is much at stake for Pakistan as many lawmakers question how bin Laden could have lived in a large fortified compound close to a Pakistani military base for so long.

Some members of Congress are now demanding that nearly $3 billion in annual aid for Pakistan, included in Obama's 2012 budget, be blocked until the Zardari administration explains how bin Laden lived untouched just 30 miles outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Pakistan has received over $20 billion in US aid since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate subcommittee that allocates foreign aid, said on Thursday he wants a complete review of US aid to Pakistan.

Leahy said he was certain that some Pakistani military and intelligence officials knew that bin Laden was hiding so close to Islamabad.

"It's impossible for them not to have some idea he was there," Leahy told Vermont Public Radio.

But Siegel, referring to claims by the Afghan government that Pakistan must have known bin Laden's whereabouts, said: "Must have known doesn't mean knew."

Siegel's firm was retained by the Zardari government in 2008 and has earned nearly $2 million in fees since then, according to Justice Department records. Siegel said his firm is paid $900,000 a year by Pakistan.

Since bin Laden's death, Siegel says he has been on Capitol Hill every day to promote Pakistan's position on the bin Laden killing, talking to congressmen, senators and their aides. (Reuters)

"Must have known doesn't mean knew." That's all he's got? Quibbling over words? If I were Zadari, I'd be looking for some new talent.

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Rewards For Justice

Another terrorist leader was named in the Rewards for Justice program today:

The U.S. Department of State has authorized a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the location of Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri. Kashmiri is the commander of the terrorist organization Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI), which supports al-Qaida. Since 2001, he has led HUJI training camps and his organization has launched several attacks in India and Pakistan.

On March 2, 2006, HUJI launched a suicide bombing against the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, which killed four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy, and injured 48 others.

It's the least we can do for the perpetrator of an attack that killed one of our citizens, one of our local employees, and a Pakistani soldier posted to our consulate.

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White House Issues Af/Pak Situation Report; Best Described As "Grim"

H/T to Foreign Policy's Af/Pak Channel blog for noting White House issues stark report on Pakistan:

The Obama administration yesterday submitted its twice-annual report [here] on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan to Congress, grimly stating that there is "no clear path toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan, despite the unprecedented and sustained deployment of over 147,000 [Pakistani] forces" (McClatchy, Post, Reuters, FT, BBC). The report expressed concern about Pakistan's failure to sustain counterinsurgency operations against militants in the country's northwest, noting that Pakistani forces have had to conduct three major operations in Mohmand agency in the last two years, though the unclassified report made no explicit calls for further operations, especially in troubled North Waziristan (WSJ, AFP). The report also called Pakistan's worsening economic situation "the greatest threat to Pakistan's stability over the medium term" (NYT).

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