SHANGHAI, Oct 19: Washington had played down fears for US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s safety on his trip to Pakistan, but the people who flew him in and out of Islamabad this week were taking no chances, eyes peeled for the flash of a heat-seeking missile — just in case an anti-American guerilla outwitted massive security to launch one from his shoulder.

“If you are talking about physical danger to Secretary Powell, he was 35 years a soldier. I don’t think that’s going to deter him,” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said while talking to reporters before Powell left home on Sunday on a regional trip.

Powell led U.S. forces in the Gulf war, his helicopter was shot down in Vietnam and he once stood on a poisoned booby trap stick — so maybe venturing to Islamabad was small fry to him.

But he may have been one of an elite group of passengers without sweaty palms when the voice from the cockpit made clear the landing in the capital would be no ordinary one.

“We are starting an immediate descent,” the voice said before the plane took a plunge and began a slow, low and near-silent approach to the airport, which turned out to be crawling with grim-faced guards armed with a variety of guns.

The plane had sunk with ear-popping speed from 9,000 metres to 2,400 metres in less than two minutes.

Passengers, including the small group of reporters who accompany Powell on his trips, were instructed to keep their window shades shut even though the cabin was barely lit.

US diplomats are all too aware that the Taliban have surface-to-air missiles.

The diplomats probably also know that guards who patrol Pakistan’s 3,500-km Afghan border are in league with smugglers who import everything from opium to crockery.

And who knows. Maybe a surface-to-air missile had found its way across the boundary 150 kms (85 miles) away.

People on the ground said they hardly heard Powell’s gleaming blue and white plane come in.—Reuters