Foreigners? ....in Karachi????

YES...

It is quite surprising, rather shocking, because for years we have not seen goras of any kind tread the city streets, shops and restaurants. But, in the last week or so my eyes have rested on so many foreigners springing up and going about this violent of all cities that I'm left wondering as to what the deal is? Tonight, at an upscale continental restaurant, I was literally shocked beyond belief - the place was oozing with angrez people of all kinds! Hello??? what's up? what about city, no this country, being no.2 most dangerous place to be in after Somalia? HuH? after the issuance of zillions of travel-warnings and restrictions on Europeans and Americans on traveling to this most sordid of places - suddenly the place is swarming with them?


Does that mean that now, with a flick of some magical hand, Karachi is become safer for the goras? That, there are reduced chances of being attacked by terrorists wearing suicide jackets waiting to blow themselves and others up? By all standards the situation in the city is fragile and sensitive to put it rather mildly. Nothing has changed in fact the pace of target killings has been increasing and the city has had very close calls to complete disaster in the past couple of weeks. So, why are we bestowed with these light-skinned people?


I find it terribly hard to believe that these foreigners I saw tonight, or in the past few days are tourists, here to see the wonderful sights of Karachi? They aren't students also come to get admission in the great learning institutes the city boasts of, they are middle-class, very buff, gentlemen all equipped with a lap-top and some files in tow, certainly here for official business. And, since not a huge number of foreign companies have their head-offices here they aren't private employees - this leaves the only plausible option and that is that these goras are government employees, rather, CIA agents and spooks who are here doing their jobs, reporting on the Karachi situation to whomever it is that they report to! They are battle-hardened, well-trained probably ex-army or ex-police personnel who aren't deterred by the dangers of sporadic killings for that is their area of work. So, we have quite a few, Raymond Davies clones doing the rounds of the city, meeting and socializing with the intelligentsia, the political players and the common people, they are, my guess is, trying to gauge the pulse of the city. And this brings me to the most sensitive of all topics - why are they so interested in Karachi now? And are the happenings of the past month especially a call by leader of MQM to get ready for an all out war amongst the different factions of the city is the reason for the sudden descent of these foreign spies like a swarm of locusts?


This development is ominous. Do the intelligent agencies and international spy networks know something, we the residents of this very divided city are unaware of? Is something big and terrible about to happen in Karachi? Are we actually at a point of no-return? Should we brace ourselves for some very turbulent times?

OR.... am I plain Paranoid?