Former CIA officer John Kiriakou has revealed that the US intelligence community once believed India and Pakistan were on the brink of war in 2002, following the Parliament attack (December 2001) and the tense military standoff that followed under Operation Parakram.
In an exclusive interview with ANI, Kiriakou, who led the CIA’s counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after 9/11, said the US took the threat seriously enough to evacuate American families from Islamabad.
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"Family members had been evacuated from Islamabad. We believed India and Pakistan would go to war," Kiriakou recalled. "The Deputy Secretary of State shuttled between Delhi and Islamabad to negotiate a settlement where both sides backed off."
#WATCH | On the aftermath of 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, ex-CIA Officer, John Kiriakou says, "... We believed India and Pakistan might go to war... Once a junior officer who worked for me and I went to lunch in the embassy cafeteria, a space that normally held pic.twitter.com/a27UwMKYcM— ANI (@ANI) October 24, 2025
He added that Washington’s attention at the time was consumed by Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, leaving India’s concerns largely overlooked.
"We were so busy and focused on Al-Qaeda, we never gave two thoughts to India," he admitted.
Reflecting on later years, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Kiriakou said US intelligence correctly assessed that...
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