U.S.: Man held in Pakistan worked for CIA

The American who fatally shot two men in Pakistan last month and has been described publicly as a diplomat is a security contractor for the CIA who was part of a secret agency team operating out of a safe house in Lahore, U.S. officials said.

The contractor, Raymond Davis, 36, has been detained in a Pakistani jail since his arrest. He has said he opened fire on the men after they attempted to rob him at a traffic signal in Lahore.

The disclosure compounds an already combustible standoff between the United States and Pakistan and complicates U.S. efforts to win Davis' release.

President Barack Obama and other senior officials have repeatedly described Davis as a diplomat assigned to the U.S. consulate in Lahore and have said he is entitled to immunity from prosecution in Pakistan.

But in fact, Davis has spent much of the past two years working as part of a group of covert CIA operatives, whose mission appears to have centered on conducting surveillance of militant groups in large cities, including Lahore.

Davis, a former Special Forces soldier who left the military in 2003, was based at a house with five other CIA contractors, a U.S. official said. He said the impact of the disclosure that Davis is a CIA contractor "will be serious."

"I think ISI knows what this guy is, but I think this is just going to inflame the Pakistanis," the official said. The ISI is Pakistan's spy service, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

"Our security personnel around the world act in a support role providing security for American officials. They do not conduct foreign intelligence collection or covert operations. Any assertion to the contrary is flat wrong" said George Little, a CIA spokesman, without commenting specifically on Davis.

The Washington Post learned of Davis' CIA affiliation but agreed not to publish that fact at the request of U.S. intelligence officials. The request was withdrawn yesterday after other news media identified Davis as a CIA employee.