ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police said they raided a local security firm which has a contract with the US Embassy.
Islamabad police official Rana Akram said the Inter-Risk firm was accused of illegal weapon possession. The raid on Saturday comes amid intense coverage, much of it negative, in the local media concerning American use of private security firms in Pakistan.
Akram said police found 61 assault rifles and nine pistols that were allegedly unlicensed.
Two employees of the Inter-Risk company were arrested during the raids in Islamabad, Akram said.
US Embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire said the US contract with Inter-Risk to provide security at the embassy and consulates took effect this year. It is believed to be the first US contract for the firm, said Snelsire.
“Our understanding is that they obtained licenses for whatever they brought into the country in order to meet contractual needs,” he said. “We told the government that we had a contract with Inter-Risk.”
The company appeared Friday in local media reports that have focused on private security firms American diplomats are believed to use in Pakistan.
In particular, Pakistani reporters, anti-US bloggers and others have suggested the US is using the American firm formerly known as Blackwater — a claim that chills many Pakistanis because of the company’s alleged involvement in killings of Iraqi civilians.
The US Embassy denies it uses Blackwater — now known as Xe Services — in Pakistan. Scandals involving US private contractors have occurred elsewhere in the region.
In Washington on Friday, the Commission on Wartime Contracting heard testimony about another contractor — ArmorGroup North America — involving alleged illegal and immoral conduct by its guards at the US Embassy in Afghanistan.
Earlier this year, the Iraqi government refused to grant Xe Services an operating license amid continued outrage over a 2007 lethal firefight involving some of its employees in Baghdad, although the State Department has temporarily extended a contract with a Xe subsidiary to protect US diplomats in Iraq.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Arab News the police raided the Inter-Risk office on his orders. He said Capt. Sayed Ali, country manger of the firm, was arrested.
Sayed Ali told authorities earlier his company had obtained licenses from the Interior Ministry for the weapons.
An Interior Ministry official told Arab News, “The ministry did not issue weapons’ licenses to the company.”
“Inter-Risk” is another name of the infamous “Blackwater,” commented Maj. Shahid Malik. He said the interior and defense ministries refused to allow Blackwater to operate in Pakistan and so the company adopted a new name — Inter-Risk.
Islamabad police officer Raja Rahat told Arab News that during the first week of this month police had arrested some Pakistani and US nationals for carrying unlicensed weapons but that they were later released after high-level intervention.
Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit at a press briefing last week denied that the government had allowed Blackwater to operate in Pakistan. But he said nothing about the operations of Inter-Risk. Pakistani political analyst Talat Masood said Inter-Risk’s association with America “will increase the apprehensions that existed that the Americans are engaged in clandestine activities,” and that the raid shows “the Pakistan government is asserting itself.”
— With input from agencies
