Former spy chief reveals CIA operations against Pakistani nuclear program

Imtiaz Ahmad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
This news is currently making headlines all over the Arabic and Muslim world, but is not reported on any US news site: retired Pakistani ISI officer and former Intelligence Bureau (IB) director, Imtiaz Ahmad (a.s. Ahmed), has said he was personally involved in foiling two CIA operations targeting Pakistan’s nuclear program. Speaking on Tuesday to Pakistan’s News International, Imtiaz revealed details about the ISI’s operation RISING SUN (1979), which involved the alleged unmasking of Rafiq Munshi, a US-trained Pakistani nuclear scientist, who Ahmed says was a CIA agent. The operation also resulted in the exposure of several undercover CIA agents, posing as diplomats, stationed in the US embassy in Islamabad and the consulate in Karachi. According to Brigadier Imtiaz, a second CIA operation was foiled by the IB shortly afterwards. It involved another CIA-handled Pakistani agent operating out of an embassy of an unnamed European nation, who Imtiaz says was eventually persuaded by Pakistani agents to turn into a double spy and routinely inform the IB on the CIA operation. According to Imtiaz, the IB later resettled the double agent, codenamed “Star”, to a foreign country, where he still lives today. Presumably these operations stopped in the 1980s, when the Reagan Administration actively supported the Pakistani nuclear program in light of Pakistan’s adversary relationship with the Soviet Union.