Pakistan angry with FBI agents' presence

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Hard-line Islamic clerics say American agents swooped in on three Islamic schools in the capital last month, breaking down doors, blindfolding a cook and peppering him with questions about alleged terror links, then disappeared as quickly as they came.\nU.S. Embassy and Pakistani law enforcement officials insist the raid never happened. Still, the claims sparked a new wave of anger at the presence of FBI agents in Pakistan and a vow by radical religious leaders to kick American soldiers and agents out of the country.\n"Whatever it was, we had nothing to do with it," a U.S. official told The Associated Press of the alleged Jan. 16 incident, speaking on condition of anonymity.\nBrig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, a senior Interior Ministry official who is coordinating intelligence and security in the campaign against terrorist groups, agreed.\n"These raids simply never took place," Cheema said. "These people wanted to malign the government, so they made these things up, but it is absolutely false. When we raid someplace, we own up to it."\nThe Islamic clerics who run the three schools in Islamabad, however, continue to insist they were targeted by English-speaking agents whom they took to be from the FBI, and it hasn't been hard to convince most Pakistanis. News of FBI involvement in high-profile arrests has become commonplace here, adding to a perception that the country is swarming with American intelligence agents.\n"Every white person in Pakistan is taken as an FBI agent," Cheema said. "It is just a perception, but there are vested interests and quarters here that want to catch on to the public sentiment to give the impression the FBI is on a rampage. The ground reality is very different."\nThe U.S. Embassy refuses to comment officially on individual arrests and it turned down a request for access to FBI officials in Pakistan. But it said the number of FBI agents in Pakistan has fluctuated between just two and 12 since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.\nWhatever the number, Pakistani police and intelligence officials confirm that FBI agents have been involved in nearly every important terror arrest in this country of 145 million people since the war on terrorism began. Pakistan's government says it has handed over more than 420 al Qaeda and Taliban suspects to American custody.\nBut opposition to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led campaign has become a rallying cry for resurgent Islamic hard-line groups, which rode a strong anti-American platform to unprecedented success in October elections. The religious coalition is urging the expulsion of all U.S. personnel.\n"It is the integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan that is at stake here," said Ameer ul-Azeem, a spokesman for the coalition, Muthida Majlis-e-Amal. "Would the United States allow Pakistani security agency men to search homes in America?"\nCheema said Americans agents never detain suspects themselves, but he acknowledged they are often present during raids and provide "technical assistance."\nTo be sure, the work of American intelligence agents in Pakistan has led to some of the greatest successes so far in the hunt for al Qaeda fugitives.\nFBI agents were present last March when Pakistani commandos raided the hide-out of al Qaeda's No. 3 man, Abu Zubaydah. Another joint FBI-Pakistani operation led to the September arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh, alleged planner of the suicide hijackings in the United States. Two other al Qaeda suspects whose identities have not been disclosed were arrested in the southern port city of Karachi in January, again with FBI assistance.\nBut the FBI has also been involved in some operations that have touched a nerve with hard-liners and everyday Pakistanis alike.\nIn October, for example, FBI agents participated in the detention of a prominent Pakistani doctor, Amer Aziz, who was taken to a safe house near Islamabad and held incommunicado for a month while American agents grilled him about links to al Qaeda.\nThe case brought nearly daily protest rallies across Pakistan, and many newspapers fueled the fire by reporting erroneously that Pakistan was considering handing Aziz over to U.S. custody and allowing him to be flown out of the country.\nAziz later admitted having met Osama bin Laden on two occasions, including once after the Sept. 11 attacks, but he was released for lack of evidence that he participated in any terrorist activities.\nPakistani human rights activists say cases illustrate what they see as a cowboy mentality pervading the anti-terrorism hunt here.\n"Terrorism is an international problem, and it must be fought internationally," said Afrasiab Khattak, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. "But the process of arrest, interrogation and extradition should always be in strict accordance with the law. There are many cases where due process has not been observed"