U.S. Military Wants to Widen Raids Into Pakistan

This is not a cut and dried issue, but for the hawkish members, should we break Pakistan's sovereignty Bush Doctrine style when the Bush Admin themselves are refusing to?

U.S. Military Seeks to Widen Pakistan Raids
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/world/asia/20pstan.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON — American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months urged a widening of the war that could include American attacks on indigenous Pakistani militants in the tribal areas inside Pakistan, according to United States officials.

The requests have been rebuffed for now, the officials said, after deliberations in Washington among senior Bush administration officials who fear that attacking Pakistani radicals may anger Pakistan’s new government, which is negotiating with the militants, and destabilize an already fragile security situation.

American commanders would prefer that Pakistani forces attack the militants, but Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas have slowed recently to avoid upsetting the negotiations.

Pakistan’s government has given the Central Intelligence Agency limited authority to kill Arab and other foreign operatives in the tribal areas, using remotely piloted Predator aircraft. But administration officials say the Pakistani government has put far greater restrictions on American operations against indigenous Pakistani militant groups, including one thought to have been behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

American intelligence officials say that the threat emanating from Pakistan’s tribal areas is growing, and that Pakistani networks there have taken on an increasingly important role as an ally of Al Qaeda in plotting attacks against American and other allied troops in Afghanistan, and in helping foreign operatives plan attacks on targets in the West. The officials said the American military’s proposals included options for limited cross-border artillery strikes into Pakistan, missile attacks by Predator aircraft or raids by small teams of C.I.A. paramilitary forces or Special Operations forces.

In recent months, the American military officials in Afghanistan who are urging attacks in Pakistan discussed a list of potential targets with the United States ambassador in Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, officials said.

The requests by the American commanders for attacks on targets in Pakistan were described by officials who had been briefed on the discussions but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions involved possible future operations.

The discussions are the latest example of a recurring problem for the White House: that the place where the terrorist threat is most acute is the place where American forces are most restricted from acting.

Officials involved in the debate said that the question of attacking Pakistani militants was especially delicate because some militant leaders were believed to still be on the payroll of Pakistan’s intelligence service, called the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or another part of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. Among the groups thought to be targets was one commanded by Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of the legendary militant leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, as well as the network led by Baitullah Mehsud that is believed to have been behind Ms. Bhutto’s death.

For years the intelligence services have relied on a web of sources among Pakistani militant groups to collect information on foreign groups like Al Qaeda that have operated in the tribal areas.

A Pentagon adviser said military intelligence officers in Afghanistan had drawn up the detailed list of potential targets that was discussed with Ambassador Patterson. It is unclear which senior officials in Washington were involved in the debate over whether to authorize attacks.

One administration official said the internal discussions in Washington involved President Bush’s top national security aides, and took place earlier this year.

Military and intelligence officials say Al Qaeda and its affiliates now have a haven to plan attacks, just as they used camps in Afghanistan before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said last month that the security situation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border “presents clear and present danger to Afghanistan, to Pakistan and to the West in general, and to the United States in particular.”

American officials involved in the discussions said that they had not ruled out striking Pakistani militants in the tribal areas. American forces in Afghanistan are authorized to attack targets in Pakistan in self-defense or if they are in “hot pursuit” of militants fleeing back to havens across the border.

American-led forces in Afghanistan fired artillery at what they suspected was a Haqqani network safe house on March 12 that an American spokesman said posed an “imminent threat.” But the Pakistani Army said the strike killed only civilians.

Administration officials say the risk of angering the new government in Pakistan and stirring increased anti-American sentiment in the tribal areas outweighs the benefits of dismantling militant networks in the region.

“It’s certainly something we want to get to, but not yet,” said one Bush administration official. “If you do it now, you can expect to do it without Pakistani approval, and you can expect to do it only once because the Pakistanis will never help us again.”

Spokesmen for the White House and State Department declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Ambassador Patterson in Pakistan.

Intelligence officials say they believe that leaders of the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups have in recent months forged closer ties to the cadre of Qaeda leaders in the tribal areas. Officials have said that they thought the leader of the Taliban there, Jalaluddin Haqqani, may have died last year. But Mr. Haqqani recently released a video denying those reports and made reference to a military attack in eastern Afghanistan that happened this March. Mr. Haqqani’s son, Sirajuddin, has also made aggressive efforts to recruit foreign fighters from the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in Central Asia.

“The relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda and other groups such as the Haqqani network, are stronger today than they were, and they’re primarily based on the Pakistani side of the border,” said Seth Jones, an analyst with the RAND Corporation, in Congressional testimony this month after his trip to Afghanistan.

The Haqqanis are suspected of organizing a suicide attack on March 3 that killed two American soldiers at an Afghan government office. Sirajuddin Haqqani is also suspected of orchestrating a suicide bomb attack in January at the Serena Hotel in Kabul that killed six people.

The discussions over how to combat Al Qaeda and Pakistani militant networks in the tribal areas have been going on for nearly two years, as American policy makers have weighed the growing militant threat in the border area against unilateral American action that could politically weaken President Pervez Musharraf, a close ally in the global counterterrorism campaign.

A few weeks after Ms. Bhutto’s assassination in December, two senior American intelligence officials reached a quiet understanding with Mr. Musharraf to intensify secret strikes against suspected terrorists by Predator aircraft launched in Pakistan.

American officials have expressed alarm that the leaders of Pakistan’s new coalition government, Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), are negotiating with militants believed to be responsible for an increasing number of suicide attacks against the security forces and political figures.

The new government has signaled that in its relations with Washington, it wants to take a path more independent than the one followed by the previous government and to use military force in the tribal areas only as a last resort.

In Congressional testimony this month, a former top American commander in Afghanistan said the need for more action was urgent. “A senior member of the administration needs to go to Pakistan and take the intelligence we have on Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani network inside of Pakistan and lay it out for their most senior leadership,” said the retired commander, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno.

He said the American envoy should “show them exactly what we know about, what they don’t know about what’s going on in their tribal areas and say, this is not a tolerable situation for you nor for us.”

“And,” he added, “we need to sit down and think through what we can collectively do about this.”

Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.

 

US think tank: Pakistan helped Taliban insurgents

By JASON STRAZIUSO – 1 day ago

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Pakistani intelligence agents and paramilitary forces have helped train Taliban insurgents and have given them information about American troop movements in Afghanistan, said a report published Monday by a U.S. think tank.

The study by the RAND Corp. also warned that the U.S. will face "crippling, long-term consequences" in Afghanistan if Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan are not eliminated.

It echoes recent statements by American generals, who have increased their warnings that militant safe havens in Pakistan are threatening efforts in Afghanistan. The study was funded by the U.S. Defense Department.

"Every successful insurgency in Afghanistan since 1979 enjoyed safe haven in neighboring countries, and the current insurgency is no different," said the report's author, Seth Jones. "Right now, the Taliban and other groups are getting help from individuals within Pakistan's government, and until that ends, the region's long-term security is in jeopardy."

Pakistan's top military spokesman rejected the findings.

The study, "Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan," found some active and former officials in Pakistan's intelligence service and the Frontier Corps — a Pakistani paramilitary force deployed along the Afghan border — provided direct assistance to Taliban militants and helped secure medical care for wounded fighters.

It said NATO officials have uncovered several instances of Pakistani intelligence agents providing information to Taliban fighters, even "tipping off Taliban forces about the location and movement of Afghan and coalition forces, which undermined several U.S. and NATO anti-Taliban military operations." No timeframes were given.

The report said Pakistan's intelligence service and other government agencies provided Taliban and other insurgents with training at camps in Pakistan, as well as intelligence, financial assistance and help crossing the border.

When asked in an Associated Press interview last month what the state of the insurgency might be in 2013, the outgoing NATO commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, said: "If there are going to be sanctuaries where these terrorists, these extremists, these insurgents can train, can recruit, can regenerate, there's still going to be a challenge there."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pleaded with the world community to address the issue of militant sanctuaries in Pakistan. Afghan intelligence officials say young, uneducated males are recruited in the border tribal areas to become suicide bombers and fighters. After battles or attacks in Afghanistan, militants flow back into Pakistan to rest and rearm, officials say.

Pakistan — which supported the Taliban regime in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks — denied it is supporting the insurgents, but acknowledged the problem of militant infiltration.

"Whenever these kinds of places are identified or pointed out, action is taken against these places and there are umpteen examples in the past where the actions have been taken against these insurgents, or, for that matter, foreigners," said Pakistan military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. "Therefore, we reject this claim of sanctuaries being aided by Pakistan's army or intelligence agencies."

Pakistan Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said Monday that he met with Karzai in the Afghan capital over the weekend, and the two sides agreed to set up biometric screening at key border checkpoints.

Malik said tens of thousands of people cross each day without any documentation.

"They go without any checking — no passport, no documentation. It's a free for all," he told reporters. He said the new computerized system would begin operating within two weeks.

Nevertheless, he defended Pakistan's efforts to police the border, saying the government had deployed 120,000 troops and had set up five times more border posts than there are on the Afghan side.

Malik expressed willingness to share intelligence on extremists and conduct joint operations with Afghan security forces. He denied that Pakistan would strike peace deals with terrorists in order to calm Islamic militancy on its own soil.

Pakistan has insisted it is only pursuing negotiations with militant groups willing to lay down their arms, and it has relied partly on tribal elders to mediate. A handful of deals have already been struck.

U.S. officials say attacks where American troops operate in eastern Afghanistan have gone up significantly since those deals were reached earlier this year.

The study said that besides the Taliban, other major militant groups find sanctuary in Pakistan. These include al-Qaida, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's radical Hezb-i-Islami group and the Haqqani network, led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Siraj.

"These insurgent groups find refuge in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, North West Frontier Province, and Baluchistan Province," RAND said in a news release. "They regularly ship weapons, ammunition and supplies into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and a number of suicide bombers have come from Afghan refugee camps based in Pakistan."

The report also called on the U.S. and its allies to help build the Afghan security forces, particularly the police, and to improve the quality of local governments, especially in rural regions.

It also claimed that Afghanistan's police are incompetent and "almost uniformly corrupt," echoing frequent criticism of the police by international officials here.

The U.S. is spending billions of dollars to train and equip the Afghan police, but the efforts are still years away from being completed.