(Courtesy: Washington Post) “WASHINGTON: For now, Mir Aimal Kansi is the fugitive who Could not be caught.
More than two years after he allegedly opened fire on unsuspecting CIA employees waiting in their cars at a stoplight outside CIA headquarters, killing two and ‘wounding three, Kansi has become a painful reminder of the limits of the U.S. government’s capability 1o apprehend a suspected international terrorist in today’s unsettled world.
FBI agents have scoured the remote, dangerous area of Pakistan where they say he is hiding out, sometimes disguising himself in women’s clothing. Twice they attempted to set traps for him; twice they came back empty-handed. tis hard enough to hunt down a ‘man who does not want to be found. But the Kansi case is further complicated by internal Pakistani politics, by the State Department’s concern that an all-out effort to arrest Kansi could lead to retaliation against American diplomatic personnel and by the possible ramifications of Kansi’sarrestonshaky U,S. Pakistani relations.
Not everyone believes that the BI, the lead agency in the manhunt, is doing all it could to get its ‘man. The families of the victims have mounted a campaign to draw ‘more attention to his case, enlisting Senator Arlen Specter, RPa., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees the CIA, in their cause and pointing out that if U.S. authorities could overcome all the obstacles to track down another fugitive in Pakistan—the suspected mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi _Ahmed Yousef—then they ought to be able to catch Kansi as well. “I don’t understand why they ‘can’t go in and get this guy,” said Judy Becker Darling, whose husband was one of two CIA employees shot to death that morning. “They got Yousef.”
The families’ frustrations shared by agents at the FBI field office in Washington that serves as the nerve center for this far-flung investigation. A few months ago, the agency added’ Kansi to its 10 Most Wanted List. Agents have distributed thousands of bright red matchbooks in Pakistan, with Kansi’s photo and the word “REWARD” in bold letters on the cover. There is even a Kansi page on the Internet.
“AK47 Attack,” the Intemet entry reads, “On January 25,1993) Mir Aimal Kansi murdered two persons and permanently inj three others. He attacked without ‘warming or provocation, shooting his AK47 assault rifle into cars waiting at a stoplight… If you have information about Kansi, contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. In the U.S., call 1800HEROES1.”
But the 29monthlong hunt to capture Kansi has bogged down recently over disagreements among the FBI, the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan about how best to proceed.
The FBI has found that complex tribal customs of southwestern Pakistan, where Kansi’s family lives, are a formidable barrier to his capture. Kansi is a native of Baluchistan, a border region that lies largely beyond the writ of Pakistan’s central government. It is inhabited by tribes and clans that adhere to a code of justice based on an eye for an cye, upholding tribal honor and collectively defending the family. Local, and even federal, policemen often are tribesmen more interested in protecting than punishing their kinsmen. Kansi’s family background compounds the problem. The Kansi tribe belongs to the minority Pashtun people, who spread into Neighboring Afghanistan, where they are the majority ethnic group, Kansi’s immediate family comes from around the provincial capital of Quetta, where it owns an entire downtown block, two hotels, or chards outside the city and other businesses. Shortly before Kansi came to the United States, his father died, and Kansi inherited $100,000 in cash and real estate.
All this gives Kansi an advantage over the captured Yousef in eluding authorities. Yousef has relatives in Pakistan, but he grew up in Kuwait and his family originally came from Iran. “Kansi’s family and tribe is large, powerful and influential in that part of Baluchistan,” said a U.S. intelligence official. “Yousef never had that kind of strength of roots and home base.”
To work in the region, the FBI needs the help of Pakistani police authorities, But in recent months, Pakistan’s police have had their hands full with fierce sectarian clashes in Sind Province, which borders Baluchistan. Federal police resources that could be used to track Kansi are simply not available, said a police superintendent.
Investigating an American murder, even a high-profile one at the CIA, is not a high priority, according to the superintendent. “We are intensely engaged in day today affairs,” he said. “One doesn’t do serious investigative work once engaged in combating mass scale terrorism.”
The hunt for a possible motive for Kansi’s actions has led FBI agents and others to examine his school years. While at Baluchistan University in the late 1980s, Kansi became involved for a brief time in a Pashtun nationalist movement that had a distinctly anti-American edge, Some reports have suggested that Kansi, or another member of his family, might have worked for the ClA when it was funneling weapons to anti-Soviet rebels in neighboring Afghanistan and there was a falling out. But the CIA has told the victims’ families that it has conducted an exhaustive search of its files and found no evidence that any member of the Kansi familiar had any connection to the agency.
FBI officials will not say exactly what they are doing to try to penetrate this tribal network to get their hands on Kansi. Susan Lloyd, spokeswoman for the Washington field office, said that a “handful of agents” remains permanently assigned to the Kansi manhunt and that they travel te Pakistan on a rotating basis. Since an outburst of sectarian violence in Karachi early last month, the FBI has proceeded with extra caution about sending agents there. “We don’t want to put others (Americans) in harm’s Way for the sake of capturing Kansi,” she said.
Earlier this year, the FBI strategy toward capturing Kansi began to change dramatically after the bureau came to the conclusion that its deliberately low key campaign, aimed at catching him off guard, ‘was not working.
In April, the FBI and State Department Prepared to begin a massive publicity campaign inside Pakistan involving posters, pamphlets and ads in local newspapers and magazines, plus the distribution of tens of thousands of matchbooks. Then the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan had second thoughts. The) embassy was concerned that! Kansi’s arrest would put Ameri4 can diplomats in Pakistan at risk.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 21, 1995
