Pakistan drops visa scrutiny mechanisms for US anti-terror experts
Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The Pakistani Embassy in Washington has lifted all scrutiny mechanisms for granting visas to US security officials. Under the new procedures, implemented two weeks ago, officials will be granted visas in 24 hours.
Previously, under pressure from the armed forces, all applications for visas by United States defence officials were passed on to Pakistan's Ministry of Defence, which in turn sent them to the directorate of Military Intelligence. After several months of scrutiny, visas were either granted or denied.
The new procedures were laid down on the direct intervention of the Office of the President, Asif Ali Zardari, to facilitate the Americans in their hunt for militant networks in Pakistani cities, where Washington believes major attacks in Europe are being planned and from where the insurgency in Afghanistan is being directed.
Compared with 2009, US drones have doubled their air-to-ground attacks in 2010, to more than 100 on militant sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Settling the visa issue, which could lead to greater anti-terror activity in Pakistan, came just before this weekend's NATO summit in Lisbon, which also discussed the alliance’s mission in Afghanistan.
Security sources in Pakistan said that the Americans want to have direct access to and control in counter-terrorism operations and want to expand their operations from the tribal regions into the cities.
They plan to boost their influence through local private security contractors as well as think tanks to motivate the Pakistani intelligentsia in favour of a regional anti-Taliban campaign. The role of the Pakistani security forces would thus be reduced.
In the past, US, British and Indian intelligence experts were forced to go through the Pakistan Defence Ministry to get into the country.
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