U.S. covert activities in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) have increasingly drawn the interest of India's Research and Analysis Wing intelligence agency. The U.S. agents are actively seeking Osama bin Laden, as well as al-Qaida and Taliban remnants.
RAW operatives speaking on condition of anonymity said that the Bush administration has set up a "secret shop" in the region despite unsettling China. Besides U.S. Special Forces, the CIA has also established "listening posts" in Pakistan's NWFP Areas to monitor communications.
The U.S. Army has also conducted military exercises in Deosai, 18 miles from Skardu. Not that the U.S. military is limiting itself to Pakistan; Indian and U.S. Special Forces have also conducted a high-altitude joint exercise in Ladakh, just across the border from Skardu.
Former RAW secretary B. Raman said that the U.S. military now has a chain of monitoring stations in Gilgit and Baltistan to keep track of telephones and wireless communications, ostensibly run by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.
A number of U.S. intelligence officers are attached to the monitoring stations; many of them are U.S. nationals of Afghan origin. Why is China edgy about U.S. Special Forces scampering around the Himalayas?
According to Raman, the U.S. National Security Agency has had a NWFP presence for years, monitoring Kazakhstan space establishments and China's nuclear facilities in Xinjiang.
