NAME: Mir Amil Kansi
AGE: The count is off
NATIONALITY: Pakistani
CLAIM TO FAME: Injected to death for having shot two CIA agents dead.

WITH the death of Amil Khan Kansi at least one chapter has been closed in America’s pursuit of people who are disillusioned with its biased policies. Belonging to the Kansi tribe in Balochistan, Amil Khan rose to fame in 1993 when in a daylight raid, he shot dead two CIA officials and wounded three others, right in front of the Agency’s headquarters in Langley. Brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle, the raid was one of the most spectacular and daring assaults on American interests ever, a feat that was bettered only by the 9/11 attacks. So unprepared were the American intelligence agencies for the attack that after emptying his bullet cache, Amil drove his way back.

From there on, American agents, with valuable assistance of Pakistani counterparts — a fact that has never been fully acknowledged by Pakistan — were on the heels of Amil. But catching him meant venturing into hostile, Taliban-controlled Afghan territory. Still, deceit and deception being the name of the game, Amil was lured by friends and fellow tribesmen into Pakistan from where he was kidnapped by FBI agents, and taken back to the US.

The FBI had taken four-and-a-half years to hunt Amil down. On his flight to the US, he confessed to the killings, citing a simple reason: protesting against US bias for Israel, and against Muslims and Islam. His only regret was that Pakistani authorities had allowed his American kidnappers to get him.

His subsequent trial and the whole process of appeals lasted till Thursday, the 14th of November, 2002. In the end, even Pakistan government, according to Press reports, made a half-hearted appeal to Washington to convert his death sentence into life imprisonment, but that was perhaps to add its feeble voice to the chorus rather than for any other purpose.

In the hours leading up to his execution, two appeals, one with the US Supreme Court and one with Virginia Governor Mark Warner, were still pending. Both were rejected. Warner said that Amil had “shown absolutely no remorse for his actions.”

Amil Khan Kansi was laid to rest next to his father in the Kansi tribe’s ancestral graveyard, in the Pakistani city of Quetta. Thousands attended his funeral and promised revenge for his death, which only confirms that the rising anti-US sentiment would continue for some time.

If the time and efforts that the Americans took in hunting down one person — responsible for the deaths of only two of its citizens - is anything to go by, getting hold of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network seems to be a distant target.