ISLAMABAD: The United States embassy in Pakistan has been found involved in importing sophisticated weapons into the country without the permission and knowledge of the authorities here, news reports revealed here yesterday.

Daily The News revealed that the Foreign Office and the Commerce Ministry have denied having authorised the US or any other foreign mission to import huge quantity of weapons while the US embassy in Islamabad has brought to Pakistan at least two consignments of modern weapons this year alone.

The Foreign Office, which is the main coordinating federal agency in any such deal of foreign missions, and the Commerce Ministry, which issues no objection certificates for such imports, have no clue as how did and from where the US embassy get the weapons in these two cases uncovered by The News and confirmed.

In one case, the US embassy imported 30 PKM Machineguns and 25 barrel grenade launchers in a shipment coming from Sofia, Bulgaria. The embassy has not offered any explanation where did these weapons go. The embassy spokesman said that he did not have any information about this.

In the second case, the US embassy has admitted importing automatic weapons for Inter-Risk, the banned local security agency, having security contracts with DynCorp and the US embassy in Islamabad. However, there has been no explanation if the arms were imported officially or smuggled from Afghanistan.

However, the most intriguing part of this case is that the Deputy Commissioner Office Islamabad did not confirm the provision of even a single weapon by the US embassy to Inter-Risk. Instead, all the weapons registered in the licences issued to Inter-Risk were gifted by a tribal chief of Bannu. It raised the fundamental question about the whereabouts of the weapons that the US admitted to have got for Inter-Risk.

Background interaction with officials of the foreign, defence, interior and commerce ministries reveal that the government of Pakistan is in the dark about the quantity of weapons brought to Pakistan by the US embassy. There is also no information with the government that where did these arms go.

Repeated incidents of arms display in public by US diplomats and the red-handed nabbing of Dutch diplomats with weapons and bombs have compelled the Foreign Office to issue a letter to all foreign missions, requesting them to declare the details of the weapons in their possession and get authority letters for the arms they want for security.

From Thursday, all US officials and diplomats are being made to go through normal immigration checks at the Islamabad Airport as the government has withdrawn the extraordinary concession offered to them after 9/11 by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Under the concessions, the US officials and their vehicles enjoyed completely unchecked arrivals and departures.