US embassy official kills two men during 'robbery' in Pakistan | World news | The Guardian
See above website for this same exact article with photo of Americans shot up car as evidence of attack on him.
US embassy official kills two men during 'robbery' in Pakistan
Third man killed by embassy vehicle (driven by a Pakistani national) rushing to the aid of American official, who was named by local media as Raymond Davis
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 January 2011 16.25 GMT
Article history
SEE ABOVE INTERNET SITE FOR ACTUAL PHOTO. PHOTOS BEING CIRCULATED ALLEDING TO BE THE CAR OF MR. DAVIS ARE OF A WHITE CAR WITH A DAMAGED REAR BUMPER. NOTE THAT MR. DAVIS WHITE CAR DOES NOT HAVE A DAMAGED REAR BUMPER. THESE ARE THE SORTS OF TRICKS AND GAMES BEING USED TO ENGINEER FALSE IMPRESSIONS ON THIS SITE CURRENTLY.
The car a US consulate employee was travelling in when he was engaged in a shoot-out in Lahore. Illustration: Mohsin Raza/Reuters
A US government official shot dead two Pakistanis during an apparent attempted robbery on a Lahore street this afternoon. A third man died after being run over by an embassy vehicle rushing to the scene.
Local police took the American, named by local media as Raymond Davis, into custody.
The US embassy confirmed he was an employee but did not specify his job or say why he was carrying a weapon. Pakistani television stations speculated he was a CIA agent.
Crowds of protesters burned tyres on the site of the shooting as the Punjab chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, ordered an immediate inquiry into the incident.
"The American told
us that he opened fire in self-defence after one of the men pulled out a pistol," the Lahore police chief, Aslam Tarin, told Reuters.
The shooting incident could inflame tensions in a country where anti-Americanism is rife and speculation abounds about the malign intentions of US covert officials.
Witnesses said that two men riding a motorbike, one carrying a gun, approached the American's car on a busy street. The American drew his firearm and shot both of them.
The American called for help from a sports utility vehicle that either rushed from the nearby consulate or was following close behind, according to different versions. On the way the jeep knocked over a pedestrian who later died in hospital.
The brother of the dead pedestrian told reporters that the driver of the car should be tried for murder. "We will not take the body of my brother until the foreigner is punished. We will file a case against him so he is hanged," he said.
Television stations showed footage of Davis a white American in his 40s with grey hair and a plaid shirt emerging from his white car, which had several bullet holes in the windscreen.
The identities or motives of the dead gunmen were not clear. Police officials said the American was the victim of an attempted robbery but presented no evidence to back up the statement.
Street robberies are not uncommon in Lahore, although the city is less risky than Karachi and attacks on foreigners are rare.
Pakistan is considered one of the riskiest posts for American officials, who are posted at the Islamabad embassy and consulates in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.
A suicide bomber killed an official working for the National Security Agency outside the Karachi consulate in 2006. Gunmen in Peshawar killed an American aid official in 2008, and later that year opened fire on a vehicle carrying the consul general, who escaped unscathed. Three US special forces officers were killed in a Taliban bomb attack in Khyber Paktunkhwa province last year.
Diplomats do not generally have permission to carry weapons although some are escorted by armed bodyguards. Security rules vary from city to city, with Lahore considered perhaps the least risky despite the threat from Punjabi militant groups.
US spies posted to Pakistan also contend with a hostile public that holds them responsible for many of the country's ills. Last month, the CIA station chief in Islamabad, named as Jonathan Banks, had to flee Pakistan after a tribesman named him in a criminal prosecution related to CIA drone strikes in Waziristan.