CP, 6 July 2010: A Pakistani man approached CIA officers in Islamabad last year, offering to give up secrets of his country’s closely guarded nuclear program. To prove he was a trustworthy source, he claimed he had spent nuclear fuel rods. But the CIA had its doubts. Before long, the suspicious officers had concluded that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, was trying to run a double agent against them. CIA officers alerted their Pakistani counterparts. Pakistan promised to look into the matter and, with neither side acknowledging the man was a double agent, the affair came to a polite, quiet end.

The incident, recounted by former U.S. officials, underscores the schizophrenic relationship with one of America’s most crucial counterterrorism allies. Publicly, officials credit Pakistani collaboration with helping kill and capture numerous al-Qaida and Taliban leaders. Privately, that relationship is often marked by mistrust as the two countries wage an aggressive spy battle against each other. . . .

. . . . But the CIA became so concerned by a rash of cases involving suspected double agents in 2009, it re-examined the spies it had on the payroll in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. The internal investigation revealed about a dozen double agents, stretching back several years. Most of them were being run by Pakistan. Other cases were deemed suspicious. The CIA determined the efforts were part of an official offensive counterintelligence program being run by Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the ISI’s spy chief.

Pakistan’s willingness to run double agents against the U.S. is particularly troubling to some in the CIA because of the country’s ties to longtime Osama bin Laden ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and to the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based Taliban faction also linked to al-Qaida. . . . .

. . . . The spate of Pakistani double agents has raised alarm bells in some corners of the agency, while others merely say it’s the cost of doing business in Pakistan. They say double agents are as old as humanity and point to the old spy adage: “There are friendly nations but no friendly intelligence services.”

“The use of double agents is something skilled intelligence services and the better terrorists groups like al-Qaida, Hezbollah, provisional Irish Republican Army and the Tamil Tigers have regularly done. It’s not something that should be a surprise,” said Daniel Byman, a foreign policy expert at the Saban Center at Brookings Institution.. . . .

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 562–Counterterrorism Asset Validation Course

♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 502–Double Agentry: Offensive Counterintelligence Operations