Bogus Agents Said to Be Antiterrorist Vigilantes

[seemslikeadream]

By DAVID ROHDE

Published: July 9, 2004

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 8 - Four men arrested for falsely posing as American government officials and illegally detaining Afghans were conducting their own self-styled antiterrorism campaign, Afghan and American officials said Thursday.

The four men, three of them Americans, illegally held eight Afghans for 12 days in the basement of a house where they had set up a fake export company, the officials said.


"Three foreigners made up their own group and pretended they were against those who conduct terrorist operations," Ali Ahmed Jalali, Afghanistan's interior minister, said Thursday at a news conference. "They were actually outlaws."

Three of the Afghans who were detained were brothers who had past ties to the political party of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a pro-Taliban commander, but officials said none of them were involved in terrorism and were, in fact, now employees of Afghanistan's new government. One works for the Afghan Supreme Court and another for the Ministry of Education, officials said.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/international/asia/09para.html?ex=1089950400&en=091289d3224f962b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE


more here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x673846

[seemslikeadream]

1. Afghans arrest fake US contractors

Eight Afghans were released from the illegal group's hideout.

Thursday 08 July 2004, 12:52 Makka Time, 9:52 GMT

Three men claiming to be US nationals have been arrested in Kabul for allegedly waging their own private war in Afghanistan.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DBD17E60-C85F-44C7-8835-51746E0C5161.htm


Fake Mercenaries?

[daleo]

2. Who was paying these vigilantes?

People don't hang around war zones for fun. Find out who was paying them and you have the story.

"The four men, three of them Americans, illegally held eight Afghans for 12 days in the basement of a house where they had set up a fake export company , the officials said."

Sounds pretty CIA like to me.

[ParanoidPat]

5. As always, if you are killed or captured, the Secretary will disavow......

.....any knowledge of your actions. This thread will self destruct in 15 seconds. :evilgrin:

[struggle4progress]

3. follow the money kick

:kick:

[thebigidea]

4. Coppery green, isn't it.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact

The people assigned to the program worked by the book, the former intelligence official told me. They created code words, and recruited, after careful screening, highly trained commandos and operatives from America’s élite forces—Navy seals, the Army’s Delta Force, and the C.I.A.’s paramilitary experts. They also asked some basic questions: “Do the people working the problem have to use aliases? Yes. Do we need dead drops for the mail? Yes. No traceability and no budget. And some special-access programs are never fully briefed to Congress.”

In theory, the operation enabled the Bush Administration to respond immediately to time-sensitive intelligence: commandos crossed borders without visas and could interrogate terrorism suspects deemed too important for transfer to the military’s facilities at Guantánamo, Cuba. They carried out instant interrogations—using force if necessary—at secret C.I.A. detention centers scattered around the world. The intelligence would be relayed to the sap command center in the Pentagon in real time, and sifted for those pieces of information critical to the “white,” or overt, world.

[seemslikeadream]

6. Vice Adm. Brent Bennett probably not the same guy?

I'm checking

In 1978, Welch was at a point where he wasn't sure whether or not to stay Navy, when he reported to the commander of naval air forces for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, Va. With a year to go, "I was riding the fence." He worked with now retired Vice Adm. Brent Bennett when he was selected as a flag writer.

He credits his decision to stay Navy to Adm. "Gus"Kinnear, with whom he also worked. "If not for his confidence in my abilities, I would have gotten out. It was a milestone for me."
http://www.dcmilitary.com/navy/trident/7_20/local_news/17521-1.html

KABUL: An explosion at an illegal bomb factory in the Afghan capital wounded at least six people, a spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force said on Sunday. The blast in Kabul’s Afshah neighbourhood on Saturday hurt three children, two women and a man, Commander Chris Henderson told reporters. He said police had arrested three men. “It is believed that the explosion occurred as the three men were assembling bombs.” Police said they were holding the father of the family, who had brought the bomb-making material from neighbouring Pakistan. “It is actually fortunate that the people assembling these explosive devices met with misadventure as their intended actions could easily have killed many innocent people,” Henderson said. The incident underscored the continuing risk of violence in Kabul despite patrols by more than 6,000 foreign peacekeepers two and a half years after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for some attacks, but officials also suspect its al Qaeda allies and forces of an allied renegade warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. reuters
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-7-2004_pg10_3