Islamabad, January 02: Pakistan’s interior minister rejects reports of any contract between Blackwater (now known as Xe Services LLC) and Pakistani Intelligence Agency.
Rehman Malik said on Friday that Blackwater is not registered as a security firm in the country denying presence of the notorious US private security firm in Pakistan, a Press TV correspondent reported.
“No such agency named Blackwater is working in Pakistan,” the minister told a delegation of traders and businessmen in the port city of Karachi.
He said that intelligence reports suggested that the recent wave of terror attacks were carried out by the pro-Taliban militants and not by Blackwater.
Maliks comments run counter to claims made by a retired Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official on Wednesday, who said that Blackwater hired services of army officers and former employees of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies for “handsome” salaries.
Khalid Khwaja, who has been at the forefront in raising the issue of “missing persons” or people detained without charges by Pakistani security agencies, said that former intelligence personnel hired by Blackwater had been asked to “pick up people with alleged connections to pro-Taliban or al-Qaeda militants.”
Moreover, former Pakistan army chief Gen. Mirza Aslam Baig recently alleged that Blackwater was involved in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
——-Agencies