Spy Feud Hampers Antiterror Efforts
Ties between U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agencies have deteriorated sharply in recent months, compromising cooperation on a range of critical counter-terrorism efforts, including U.S. drone strikes targeting top militant leaders, current and former officials say.
Some U.S. officials describe relations between the two spy agencies as the worst since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. One senior official said the tensions have cost the U.S. the chance to strike at some senior terrorists in the region.
The state of relations, while never perfect, is now alarming counter-terrorism and military officials, who say close cooperation between the Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is essential to the campaign against al Qaeda and the war against the Taliban and its allies in Afghanistan.
Behind the falling out is a series of controversial incidents starting late last year, which prompted tit-for-tat accusations that burst into the open with the December outing of the CIA's station chief in Islamabad.
More recently, tensions have risen to new highs over Pakistan's detention of former Special Forces soldier Raymond Davis, a U.S. government contractor in the city of Lahore, for killing two Pakistanis in disputed circumstances. A Pakistani court Thursday ruled to delay by three weeks a hearing on whether Mr. Davis is covered by diplomatic immunity.
Earlier this week, President Barack Obama urged Pakistan to honor a 1961 treaty on diplomatic immunity to which both Pakistan and the U.S are signatories. Pakistan's central government faces public pressure from Islamist and student groups not to release Mr. Davis, who shot dead the two men on Jan. 27 in the center of Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city. Mr. Davis has said the men were trying to rob him at gunpoint.
Faced with pointed questions from lawmakers about strained ties with Pakistan, CIA Director Leon Panetta this week acknowledged relations between intelligence agencies were "one of the most complicated" he's ever seen. While the ISI continues to help the U.S. target al Qaeda leaders in the tribal areas, Mr. Panetta said its policies in other areas are in direct conflict with the U.S., stoking frequent tensions.
One U.S. official briefed on the matter, defending the agency's handling of the ties, acknowledged that relations were in a "trough at the moment," but rejected suggestions they were at their worst since 9/11. He said the disagreements stem not from a lack of cooperation "but because the Pakistanis are pulling stunts that just don't make any sense."
The CIA has long used intelligence from the ISI to help identify targets for drone strikes in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Officials on both sides say the CIA now operates largely autonomously, especially since the U.S. has been concentrating its fire on the Haqqani militant network in the North Waziristan region.
U.S. officials say the ISI no longer provides the CIA with targeting information in most cases. A senior Pakistani official said of the CIA: "They don't ask us before they fire their missiles."
The ISI has long nurtured ties with the Haqqanis, which it sees as a strategic asset that can help Islamabad fend off Indian influences in neighboring Afghanistan, especially as U.S. forces begin pulling out in July. Washington, in contrast, sees the Haqqanis, who have been responsible for spectacular attacks in Kabul, as the biggest single threat to Western and Afghan forces, particularly in eastern Afghanistan. The group has emerged as one of the main targets of the drone strikes over the past year.
"The [ISI has] no intention of helping the United States degrade the Haqqani network," a U.S. official said.
The CIA hasn't conducted any drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan since Jan. 23, one of the longest known periods without a strike since the beginning of the Obama administration. Drone strikes peaked in September with a record 22 attacks. They've been falling since then to a low of nine in January.
U.S. intelligence officials attribute the recent drop off in the number of strikes to bad winter weather. Other officials and experts say weather may well be a factor, but that the sharp drop in strikes also suggests that the CIA may be having trouble pinpointing new Haqqani targets, either because militants have gone deeper into hiding or have moved to new areas, possibly with the help of ISI.
Two tribesmen in North Waziristan say the weather has been mixed, cloudy some days or sunny on others, since Jan. 24. They said aircraft they believe to be drones can be seen flying overhead on clearer days but there have been no strikes.
The Haqqani network has long used Miranshah in North Waziristan as its main base of operations in Pakistan. But U.S. officials and outside experts say there are signs the group may be moving to a neighboring tribal area known as Kurram, possibly with the help of ISI agents, making it harder for the CIA to find targets to strike in North Waziristan.
Jeff Dressler, an expert on the Haqqani network with the Institute for the Study of War who frequently briefs U.S. military leaders, said the movement into Kurram would more than double the size of the group's safe haven in Pakistan and provide its fighters, which are aligned with al Qaeda and the Taliban, with easier access to the greater Kabul area, approximately 60 miles away, to carry out attacks.
U.S. officials suspect the ISI has at a minimum tracked the militants' movements, but the Pakistani government hasn't shared that intelligence with the CIA. "No one can move out of Miranshah without someone in the Pakistani government knowing about it, especially the bigger fish," a U.S. official said.
The problems between the CIA and ISI stem from a number of factors, including Pakistani anger over public comments by U.S. officials that Pakistan isn't doing enough to combat militancy, and Pakistani concerns that the CIA is building up its own spy network as an end run around the ISI. U.S. officials, in turn, blamed ISI for leaking the identity of the CIA's station chief.
Meetings between ISI and CIA officials, formerly held every 10 days or so, have become less frequent, a senior ISI official said. A U.S. official said contacts continued but offered few details.
Pakistan last year also quietly shut down at least two so-called fusion centers that brought together U.S. and Pakistani military intelligence officials.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said she now sees the CIA-ISI relationship as "something less than wholehearted partnership" because the ISI is "walking both sides of the street."
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