Chitral, once an attractive destination for foreign tourists, has become infested with spies looking for Osama Bin Laden, Newsday reports. “Since September 11, 2001, Chitral has found itself uncomfortably at the fringe of America’s ‘war on terror’ and search for Bin Laden,” writes James Rupert in Newsday. Rupert recounts a visit to Chitral by Paul Aurdic, from the US Consulate in Peshawar, in April 2005. “Aurdic ... registered as a tourist at a Chitral hotel and began moving into what he told hotel staffers was a rented vacation home. But his carloads of equipment - including a satellite dish and exercise machines - raised suspicions that he was opening a CIA or FBI outpost dedicated to the search for Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda members. When a local legislator voiced the suspicions in parliament and announced a march to protest the American’s presence, Aurdic and a Pakistani colleague left town.”
“Before and after the mysterious American’s visit, reports quoting Afghan and US intelligence officials said Chitral was a suspected hiding place or travel route for Bin Laden,” says the report.
People in Chitral “don’t want the FBI or CIA here - or the Taliban or Al Qaeda, because we are lucky to have a peaceful place here and these people will disturb it,” said Mahkamuddin, a Chitral newspaper reporter. The southern Chitral village of Arandu is reported by residents to be full of spies working for both sides in the war - and Afghanistan is holding a local resident whom it accuses of having escorted Bin Laden through Chitral. Last year, US troops opened bases just a few miles beyond the ridgelines separating the Chitral valley from Afghanistan.