Much before super terrorist Osama bin Laden cast his malevolent shadow on the world, Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kansi launched his personal jehad in 1993 by gunning down two Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) detectives in the US. He avenged the killing of Muslims by the CIA at the time when America was still stoking its dangerous liaisons with Islamist fundamentalists. The execution of Kansi, 38, by lethal injection was set for November 15 at the Greensville Correctional Centre. Although not known to be linked with any Islamist terrorist organisation, Kansi was convicted by the US courts for killing agents Frank Darling, 28, and Lansing Bennet, 66, as they sat in their cars at a traffic light outside CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Hailing from the powerful Kansi tribe of Baluchistan, he fled to Pakistan after the incident. Kansi was picked up from Punjab in Pakistan by US and Pakistani intelligence agents and brought to stand trial in the Virginia courts in 1997.

RELIGIOUS RIGHT: Student activists in Quetta at a rally in support of Kansi

NEW THREAT: Al-Qaida wants to buy Stinger missiles

Kansi execution was set against the backdrop of a revival of fundamentalism in Pakistan and at a time when the entire region is gripped with a fresh wave of anti-Americanism preceding the confrontation with Iraq. The activists of the radical Islami Jamiat-e-Talba even organised rallies in support of Kansi in Quetta. He is the first Pakistani national to be executed for an act of terrorism in the US.

Hussain Haqqani, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, says, "I do not think that there will be any fallout but the way things have evolved in Pakistan, it would always be better to be cautious." The American threat perception has gone up with the resurfacing of bin Laden a year after the ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan. His chilling message to the US: "As you assassinate, so will you be assassinated."

While Kansi's death may not have an immediate backlash, it has brought Pakistan into the spotlight. The international community is virtually convinced that the locus of terrorism has crossed the Durand Line and its epicentre is now in Pakistan. This stands substantiated by the arrest of two Pakistanis from Peshawar-Syed Mustajab Shah, 54, and Mohammed Abid Afridi, 29-and a naturalised US citizen, Illyas Ali, 55, in Hong Kong for trying to trade drugs for Stinger missiles. The trio were picked up in September for trading 5 tonnes of hashish and 600 kg of heroin for four shoulder-fired Stinger missiles with undercover FBI agents. They were allegedly procuring the short-range anti-aircraft missiles for Al-Qaida. Extradition proceedings against these terrorists started on November 15. If convicted by the US courts, they could face life imprisonment and fines running into millions of dollars.

But this is not the last of Pakistan's problems with the US. There is mounting evidence that Islamabad supplied prohibited nuclear technology to North Korea in return for missile technology as late as three months ago. The presence of a large number of Al-Qaida terrorists in Pakistan is adding to the US headache. The fact is Pakistan appears to be running on borrowed time and now faces the risk of entering the American lexicon as a rogue state.

-Shishir Gupta and Anil Padmanabhan in New York