A former Pakistani intelligence chief confirms that the infamous US security contractor Blackwater (now known as Xe Services LLC) is involved in the US missile attacks on northwestern Pakistan.

“They certainly have had a role to play,” said Asad Durani, former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.

He was commenting on the missile raids that the United States carries out on the Pakistani tribal region using unmanned aerial vehicles.

“I learned somewhere that these people are employed certainly for…the logistic support at the drone bases. That is understandable,” Durani said.

“They may not be directing in that sense the drone attacks,” he said, claiming that the fire is directed by, among others, “people who can merge with the background who go to certain areas, carry out or find out where the possible targets are.”

The security firm won notoriety for its killing of more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in September 2007. The firm later on changed its name to Xe Services LLC.

Two former Blackwater mercenaries have also been charged with the 2009 murder of two Afghan civilians in Kabul.

Pakistan’s Wattan Party’s Punjab President Hashim Shaukat Khan has accused the country’s Interior Ministry of buckling “under American pressure” by letting 200 Blackwater staffers enter Pakistan without clearing the customs.

The former ISI chief implicated the contractor in festering violence across Pakistan, saying “the main role of these security agencies in the deteriorating situation is their presence in the country amongst other things to provide security to the US personnel, but very importantly also for espionage.”

“They are looking for what they call the remnants of al-Qaeda and some sympathizers of Taliban,” Durani added, referring to the US excuse for taking the border areas under relentless missile attacks.

The attacks, launched by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in cooperation with the Pentagon, reportedly killed more than 700 civilians in Pakistan in 2009.

More than 50 such raids in 2008 left hundreds of mostly civilian mortalities.

Washington has escalated the attacks this year, which has so far witnessed at least six raids US drones. Latest attacks, mostly targeting villages in North Waziristan, have killed at least 30 people, which the US claims were mostly militants.

The Long War Journal, a US website tracking the strikes, however, says the assaults have killed mostly civilians and have failed to target top militant leaders.

“It is quite thinkable that these people, since they have been employed by the CIA for certain purposes, so in the overall game, they become an important player and also then become the targets of not only some retaliatory measures but also the anger of the Pakistani people,” the former ISI chief concluded.

HN/MMN”