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  #21  
Old Tuesday, September 09, 2008
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Post

U.S. Missiles Said To Kill 20 in Pakistan Near Afghan Border
Taliban Commander's Home Targeted


By Shaiq Hussain
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 9, 2008


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 8 -- At least 20 people were killed and 25 were injured Monday when missiles fired by U.S. Predator drones hit a religious school and the house of a powerful Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, according to witnesses and a Pakistani security official.

The strike, apparently part of stepped-up U.S. attacks in Pakistan's volatile border areas, occurred about 10:30 a.m. in the village of Dande Darpakhel, home base of commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. U.S. intelligence has blamed a network run by Haqqani and a son for a July attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, in which 50 people were killed.

Two U.S. Predators fired six missiles in rapid succession at the village, hitting the seminary, which is run by Haqqani, his nearby house and several others, said Bashirullah, a village resident who like many ethnic Pashtuns uses one name.

A Pakistani security official in North Waziristan confirmed villagers' accounts, saying the commander's supporters immediately cordoned off the area and barred anyone from entering. By the official's account, given anonymously because he lacks authorization to speak to the news media, Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin -- also a leading Taliban fighter -- were not in the targeted buildings when the missiles struck.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, confirmed the strike but said he could not verify that U.S. drones had fired the missiles.

As the Taliban insurgency heats up in Afghanistan, U.S. forces have paid increasing attention to sanctuaries in Pakistan, urging its government to attack them and launching strikes from Afghanistan. Monday's attack appears to be the fifth in about a week.

Last week, at least 20 people, including women and children, were killed in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan after U.S. and Afghan troops flew by helicopter nearly 20 miles across the border from Afghanistan and launched a ground assault on the small village of Musa Nika, according to witnesses and Pakistani officials.

The strike Monday in North Waziristan apparently failed to hit its intended targets, but witnesses said it killed several relatives of Haqqani, a veteran Taliban fighter who is thought to have close links to Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

U.S. officials have named the Haqqani network one of the top threats to coalition troops in Afghanistan, saying that Sirajuddin, Haqqani's son and second-in-command, has used the seminary as a safe house and training ground for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Those fighters have been mounting cross-border attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistani security forces have raided Haqqani's seminary several times in recent years, but local residents and security officials say it is no longer a training ground.

Intelligence officials say Jalaluddin Haqqani founded the two-story seminary, known as Madrassa Mumba-I-Uloom, in the 1980s after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Haqqani, who received millions in funding from the United States and Saudi Arabia and support from the CIA during the Soviet conflict, personally conducted hundreds of classes, educating thousands of students who later joined Islamist forces that defeated the Soviets.

He remained an influential figure in Pakistan's restive tribal areas for years after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. When the United States launched its military campaign in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Haqqani became one of the most powerful Afghan Taliban commanders.

His network's major operational hub is in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, officials say, but the network was originally based in Dande Darpakhel, where the missiles hit Monday. Recent health problems have forced Haqqani to take less of a role in the network, leaving his son Sirajuddin to manage it.

Correspondent Candace Rondeaux contributed to this report.
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Post Pakistan's New Leader and the U.S. Dilemma

Pakistan's New Leader and the U.S. Dilemma


Jayshree Bajoria
Council on Foreign Relations
Tuesday, September 9, 2008


Pakistan's new president (BBC), Asif Ali Zardari, assumes office at a time of great political turmoil, intense terrorist violence, economic weakness, and deteriorating relations with neighboring India and Afghanistan. The powers of his own office, inherited from former President Pervez Musharraf, will also be in question. Musharraf first assumed office through a 1999 military coup and gradually expanded the presidency's powers through constitutional amendments, including the ability to dissolve parliament. President Zardari, widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and leader of her Pakistan People's Party, has promised to restore the balance of powers (WashPost).

Zardari's foreign policy challenges are also daunting. His vow to continue his predecessor's counterterrorism partnership with the United States will face new hurdles after revelations that the United States staged ground force attacks (NYT) on Pakistani soil this month. While the White House declined to comment on the incident, both houses of Pakistan's parliament made a forceful statement (Dawn), including a demand that Pakistan's army prepare itself to "repel such attacks in the future with full force." Some in the Bush administration have expressed frustration with Pakistan's performance on counterterrorism, and this could signal a decision to set aside sensitivities and increase U.S. operations into Pakistan to pursue militants (LAT).

This could make it even more difficult for the Pakistani government to balance its domestic political concerns with demands placed on it by Washington. An opinion poll (PDF) conducted in May by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based nonproift group, found that 74 percent of Pakistanis opposed U.S. military action against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Anatol Lieven, a senior fellow of the Washington-based New America Foundation, writes that Zardari "is already hated by much of the population, in part because he is seen as too pro-American" (IHT). Zardari and his slain wife, Bhutto, were able to return to Pakistan in October 2007 after an amnesty deal signed with Musharraf acquitted them of all corruption charges. Many analysts believe the Bush administration helped to push this deal through, hoping that a powersharing deal between Bhutto and Musharraf could restore a democratic face to Pakistan's politics while keeping their long-term ally Musharraf in power.

Closer to home, Zardari must grapple with his own military. Pakistan expert Shuja Nawaz, writing in PostGlobal, notes "the army still remains a key player in Pakistan." The country's military and intelligence services have a long history of ties with, and sympathies for, the Taliban. Some analysts charge these ties render any Pakistani counterterrorist strategy ineffective. Journalist and author Dexter Filkins writes in the New York Times Magazine that the Pakistani army, once a predominantly secular institution, is increasingly being led by Islamist-minded officers. "The main challenge for the civilian government is to gradually assert their predominance over the military (PDF)," argues South Asia expert Frederick Grare. However, he warns, it must do so without humiliating the military and avoid direct confrontation.

Zardari's party also faces political pressures stemming from the recent breakup of its coalition with the party of Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister ousted by Musharraf's coup in 1999. All of this turmoil has Washington reconsidering its policy toward the country. "If there's a case to be made against democracy, few countries make it better than Pakistan," opines Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens, a supporter of Bush administration policy in the region. Columnist Peter Preston calls it a doomed presidency (Guardian). Hassan Abbas, a research fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, says no matter how flawed, Pakistan's democratic institutions are better placed to tackle this chaos than any dictatorship. He expresses hope that the United States will show patience for the democratic process in Pakistan and not put its weight behind any one person or general, as it did with Musharraf. Robert Templer, the Asia Program director of the International Crisis Group, writes in the Financial Times that backing the Pakistani military or choosing sides among the political parties will undermine democracy and create greater instability. "Instead, the U.S. and others need to broaden their relationships with the country, expanding trade, opening markets and providing more education assistance," he argues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090901123.html
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Old Thursday, September 11, 2008
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Post

Top Military Officer Urges Major Change in Afghanistan Strategy



By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 11, 2008


The nation's top military officer issued a blunt assessment yesterday of the war in Afghanistan and called for an overhaul in U.S. strategy there, warning that thousands more U.S. troops as well as greater U.S. military involvement across the border in Pakistan's tribal areas are needed to battle an intensifying insurgency.

"I am not convinced that we're winning it in Afghanistan," Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee yesterday. But, he added, "I'm convinced we can."

On the day after President Bush announced he will cut troops in Iraq and bolster them in Afghanistan between now and early 2009, Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates also signaled that they would give increasing priority to the Afghan war and the expanding insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan.

"The war on terror started in this region. It must end there," Gates told the committee.

Violence has mounted for more than two years in Afghanistan from an increasingly sophisticated and brazen insurgency, one fueled by havens in Pakistan. As a result, the war is exacting a worsening toll on coalition forces, with the number of U.S. troops who died there so far this year -- 109 -- projected to surpass last year's high of 117. U.S. and NATO troops remain hampered by manpower shortages, a lack of helicopters and a disjointed chain of command.

"Frankly, we are running out of time," Mullen said, and stressed that not sending U.S. reinforcements to Afghanistan is "too great a risk to ignore."

He said the new influx of U.S. forces into Afghanistan that Bush announced Tuesday -- an Army brigade and Marine battalion with a total of about 4,500 troops -- does not meet the demands of commanders there, but is "a good start."

Already, total U.S. forces in Afghanistan have grown from 21,000 troops in 2006 to nearly 31,000 today. Many NATO countries restrict their troops' combat roles; others have set an end date for their involvement in the war, with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying yesterday that all of his country's troops will withdraw in 2011, according to the Associated Press.

At a time when Bush has characterized Afghanistan as an increasingly critical front in the battle against terrorism, and when Army Gen. David H. Petraeus is set to take the helm of the region in his new post as head of U.S. Central Command, Mullen announced that he is commissioning a "more comprehensive" strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He indicated that a key element of the strategy would be to secure a greater role for the U.S. military in helping Pakistan to crack down on insurgents in cross-border tribal areas, a role Mullen said he has "pressed hard" for Pakistani military leaders to allow.

Afghanistan and Pakistan "are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them," Mullen said. "Until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming," he said, noting how insurgents have recently launched "infantry-like attacks" on U.S. military positions.

Mullen did not detail how the U.S. military could better help Pakistan battle insurgents in tribal areas, although he reiterated that the United States will remain involved in training Pakistan's Frontier Corps.

The U.S. military in recent months has intensified its unilateral attacks on insurgent havens in Pakistan, using artillery, missiles from unmanned drones and other munitions, as well as, according to Pakistani officials, U.S. military air assault by helicopter into the tribal area of South Waziristan.

But Pakistani officials have bristled at the U.S.-led actions, and Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, chief of the Pakistani army, said yesterday that his country will oppose further incursion of U.S. troops. In a statement issued hours after Mullen's testimony, Kayani referred to a recent cross-border raid led by U.S. commandos in South Waziristan, saying coalition forces are barred from operating inside Pakistan. "There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the Coalition Forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," he said.

Yet even if the Pentagon could achieve a better coordinated regional strategy, Mullen stressed that military forces can do only so much to pacify the area. "No amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek," he said, adding later: "We can't kill our way to victory."

Greater efforts by U.S. civilian agencies and the international community are essential, he said. For example, he criticized the shortage of civilian personnel in Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, saying that without more experts in agriculture, education, commerce and jurisprudence, the PRTs "will remain but empty shells."

Gates also underscored that civilian efforts "must be on the same page" as those of the military. "I am still not satisfied with the level of coordination and collaboration" between military and civilian partners on reconstruction and strengthening the Afghan government, he said.

Despite their focus on Afghanistan, both Gates and Mullen said that the situation in Iraq remains uncertain and could require more forces in the future. "I worry that the great progress" by U.S. and Iraqi forces could override caution and lead to an excessively rapid drawdown, said Gates, noting that U.S. commanders in Iraq remain concerned about "many challenges and potential for reversals."

In sum, he said, "we should expect to be involved in Iraq for years to come, although in changing and increasingly limited ways."

Still, both leaders made it clear that they intend to change the Pentagon's formulation -- first voiced by Mullen in testimony last December -- that "in Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must." Yesterday, in contrast, Gates said he thinks it will be possible in comings months "to do militarily what we must in both countries."

"They are both a priority right now," Mullen concurred.

Correspondent Candace Rondeaux in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091001396.html
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Post Pakistan army chief criticizes US raid

Pakistan army chief criticizes US raid


By STEPHEN GRAHAM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 10, 2008.


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's military chief on Wednesday lashed out at the United States over cross-border raids by American troops from Afghanistan and said his country's sovereignty will be defended "at all cost."

In an unusually strong public statement, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said a raid last week into Pakistan's South Waziristan region killed innocent civilians and could backfire on the anti-terror allies.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would not comment directly on Kayani's remarks. But he said the U.S. military is working closely with the Pakistanis in regard to the border region.

"We have a shared common interest with respect to terrorism and terrorist activities," Whitman said. "Pakistan recognizes the challenges that they have, and the United States is committed to helping allies counter terrorism."

But Kayani said such operations were covered by no agreement between Pakistan and U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and risked stoking militancy in a region which Washington regards as an intolerably safe haven for al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

"Falling for short term gains while ignoring our long term interest is not the right way forward," Kayani said, according to the statement released through the military's media wing.

"To succeed, the coalition would be required to display strategic patience and help the other side the way they want it, rather than adopting a unilateral approach."

The Pakistan government already hauled in the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad to lodge a strong protest over a highly unusual raid by helicopter-borne grounds troops into South Waziristan last week which residents said killed about 15 people.

Officials have said they included civilians, though acknowledged they had no first-hand information.

U.S. officials have confirmed that American troops carried out the operation, but provided no details. The objective and results of the mission remain unclear.

Together with a barrage of suspected U.S. missile strikes into Pakistan's border zone, the raid indicates that Washington is getting more aggressive against militant targets beyond Afghanistan's frontier, despite the political fallout in Pakistan, a key U.S. ally.

A U.S. missile strike Monday in the North Waziristan tribal region destroyed a seminary and houses associated with a veteran Taliban commander and killed 20 people, including some women and children as well as four foreign militants, officials said.

The tribal belt is considered a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

Three Pakistani intelligence officials identified the foreign militants as Abu Qasim, Abu Musa, Abu Hamza and Abu Haris. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of their jobs' sensitivity.

Abu Haris led al-Qaida efforts in the tribal areas, while Abu Hamza led activities in Peshawar, the main northwest city, according to the intelligence officials, who said they got the details from informants and agents in the field.

Two U.S. officials said the strike was carried out by the CIA. The American officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss CIA operations.

Kayani had maintained an impeccably low profile since taking over the pivotal position of army chief from U.S. ally and former coup leader Pervez Musharraf last year.


Parties which won February elections forced Musharraf to quit as president last month. The military, which has dominated Pakistan for much of its 61-year history, has said it will follow the lead of the new civilian government.

But in a measure of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military action on its soil, even in the tribal belt where the state has minimal control, Wednesday's statement contained Kayani's first public criticism of American policy.

"The rules of engagement with the coalition forces are well defined" and foresee Pakistan alone taking action against militants inside its borders, Kayani said. "There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces" that allows them to operate in Pakistan, he said.

The general defended Pakistan's policy of seeking reconciliation in its wild tribal belt. He insisted the army was committed to eliminating militants, but said it had to be sure of popular support.

"Reckless actions" which kill civilians "only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area," he said.

"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091002178.html
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Post Pakistan Did Not Agree to New Rules, Officials Say

Pakistan Did Not Agree to New Rules, Officials Say


By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 12, 2008


New rules of engagement authorizing U.S. ground attacks inside Pakistan, signed by President Bush in July, were not agreed to by that country's civilian government or its military, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the Pakistani army's chief of staff, was informed last month by senior U.S. defense officials that if Pakistan failed to stem the flow of Taliban and other militant fighters into Afghanistan, the United States would adopt a new strategy, one allowing ground strikes on targeted insurgent encampments. A senior Pakistani official said that Kiyani believed the strategy was still under discussion and that Pakistan's counterinsurgency performance was improving.

News of Bush's order, following a strike last week by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos on a village about 20 miles inside Pakistan, brought denunciation yesterday from Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, who echoed Kiyani's earlier charge that the attack had violated Pakistani sovereignty.

Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said at a news conference in Kabul that he approved of the new U.S. strategy, citing the need to "remove and destroy" insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan. But NATO said it had no intention of sending any of the 48,000 troops under its command in Afghanistan across the border. NATO's U.N. mandate does not include "ground or air incursions . . . into Pakistani territory," said spokesman James Appathurai.

Nearly 31,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, divided between the NATO command and a separate force under the U.S. Central Command.

A senior European official said that the NATO allies shared U.S. concern over the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and were aware new U.S. rules were under consideration, but that they were unaware the rules had been approved. Bush's July order, first reported yesterday by the New York Times, was confirmed by several U.S. officials.

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, said U.S. officials assured him yesterday that "no such order had been given." The United States, he said, "respects Pakistan's sovereignty."

The senior European official called the implementation of the new strategy "peculiar," since its timing coincided with this week's inauguration of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.

"If you're going to invade another country . . . without their permission, after you've just spent eight years trying to get a democratic government in place, it strikes me as kind of confused politics," the official said.

Zardari plans to meet with Bush this month, either in Washington or in New York at the U.N. General Assembly, U.S. officials said.

Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that he had called for an overhaul of U.S. strategy, including greater U.S. military involvement in Pakistan's tribal areas, but gave no indication that orders had already been given.

"I'm not convinced that we're winning it in Afghanistan," Mullen told the House Armed Services Committee. But, he added, "I'm convinced we can."

"That is why I intend to commission and have looked -- are looking -- I'm looking at a new, more comprehensive military strategy for the region that covers both sides of that border," Mullen said. "That is why I pressed hard on my counterparts in Pakistan to do more against extremists and to let us do more to help them."

Mullen and other senior U.S. military officials have met repeatedly with Kiyani to urge a more robust offensive to roust Taliban, al-Qaeda and other militant fighters from safe havens in the rugged Pakistani border region.

Gillani, who heads Pakistan's first democratic government since 1999, told Bush during a Washington visit in July that he needed more time to implement an economic development strategy to pacify the border region.

But with rising troop deaths in Afghanistan, U.S. patience has run thin. On Tuesday, Bush announced he would send an additional Army combat brigade to Afghanistan early next year.

Previous military rules of engagement, agreed to by Pakistan, allowed U.S. forces to travel up to six miles across the border if they were in "hot pursuit" of fighters chased from inside Afghanistan. The senior Pakistani official said that Kiyani was told last month that failure to increase the tempo of Pakistani military operations and provide better intelligence for American cross-border air attacks could result in new rules.

"There was a conditionality," the Pakistani official said. "If we take care of certain things on our side, then the rules don't change." Improvements were "already being put into place," he said, attributing several recent U.S. strikes with Predator unmanned aircraft to Pakistani intelligence, and citing an attack this week by Pakistani security forces in the tribal region of Bajaur that reportedly left 100 fighters dead.

But a U.S. official, one of several who discussed the sensitive situation on the condition of anonymity, said that as far as the United States was concerned, "most things have been settled in terms of how we're going to proceed."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091103811.html
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Post

Pakistan Allegedly Repulses U.S. Raid
American Military Repudiates Report


By Candace Rondeaux
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 16, 2008


KARACHI, Pakistan, Sept. 15 -- Pakistani troops turned back a U.S. attack in Pakistan's tribal areas on Monday by firing warning shots toward U.S. troops as they attempted to cross from Afghanistan in pursuit of Taliban insurgents, a Pakistani intelligence official said. U.S. and Pakistani military spokesmen denied the report.

A Pakistani intelligence official said several U.S. helicopters were seen hovering near the Pakistani village of Angor Adda in the tribal area of South Waziristan. By the official's account, the helicopters landed just inside Afghanistan and several U.S. soldiers got out of them.

Pakistani troops fired warning shots in the air as the U.S. troops tried to enter Pakistani territory from Afghanistan, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on military operations. The brief standoff ended about 4:30 a.m., the intelligence official said.

Local villagers gave similar accounts, the Reuters news agency reported.

But Maj. Murad Khan, a spokesman for the Pakistani military, denied reports of gunfire. "There was no firing in the area, and there was no violation of Pakistani airspace," Khan said. "We have heard there were U.S. helicopters hovering at our border area, but they were deep inside Afghanistan."

Sgt. Chris Peavy, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said: "We fly everyday missions in that area, all the time. It's close to the border, but we did not enter that area today. There's been no firing on our forces."

Tensions over cross-border incursions by U.S. and Afghan forces into Pakistan's tribal areas have been rising for months, as U.S. and NATO troops have suffered several major setbacks in Afghanistan.

Those tensions came to a boil early this month when U.S. commandos landed helicopter gunships in another South Waziristan village on Sept. 3. Pakistani officials said at least 20 people were killed after U.S. troops opened fire on a compound in the village of Musa Nika.

The incident prompted outrage from Pakistan's government and sparked an ongoing debate in the country over Pakistan's increasingly tenuous alliance with the United States in the fight against Islamist insurgents in the region. The debate was fueled by strikes in the tribal area by U.S. Predator drone aircraft.

U.S. officials have pressured Pakistan to step up its efforts to cut off attacks on coalition troops from Pakistan's tribal areas. Frustrated by a lack of progress on containing the threat from Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders, President Bush signed an order in July authorizing U.S. troops to conduct ground operations inside Pakistan.

Last week, Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, condemned the attacks, saying Pakistan is prepared to defend its territory "at all cost." Kiyani's statement followed comments by Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that increased U.S. incursions in Pakistan are likely.

Pakistan's newly elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, is expected to discuss the issue of cross-border strikes with Bush during a visit to the United Nations in New York next week.

Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091503013.html
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Post Mullen Visits Pakistan as U.S. Raids Stir Tensions

Mullen Visits Pakistan as U.S. Raids Stir Tensions



By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 17, 2008.


KABUL, Sept. 16 -- The United States' top military officer flew unexpectedly into Pakistan on Tuesday night to meet with senior officials amid a tense confrontation between the two allies over recent U.S. military incursions into Pakistan in pursuit of al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists.

The unannounced visit by Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came hours after a spokesman for Pakistan's army was reported as saying that the country's soldiers had orders to "open fire" if U.S. forces attempt a cross-border raid similar to a Sept. 3 commando operation in which about 20 people were killed.

Lt. Col. Gary Tallman, a spokesman for Mullen, said the admiral would focus "on working more closely with the Pakistani military to improve coordination and effectiveness in operations against extremist safe havens in the border regions." It is Mullen's fifth visit to Pakistan since he became chairman nearly a year ago; he plans to meet Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani and army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani.

The U.S. raids have embarrassed and angered Pakistan's military, and stirred widespread public outcry. The reported comments by Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas underlined the tensions.

"The orders are clear," Abbas was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. "In case it happens again in this form, that there is very significant detection, where it is very definite, no ambiguity across the board, on the ground or in the air: open fire."

The Sept. 3 raid, which followed a series of U.S. airstrikes by unmanned Predator planes, was the first known incursion into Pakistan by U.S. ground forces. The commandos flew by helicopter into the South Waziristan tribal region and attacked a compound thought to harbor several key Islamist extremist figures. The successive attacks have killed dozens, including many civilians.

Kiyani has protested the U.S. actions, warning that his country's sovereignty would be "defended at all cost," and asked his American counterparts to "please look at the public reaction to this kind of adventure and incursion."

Privately, Pakistani analysts said they did not expect Pakistani troops to shoot at U.S. forces, with whom they have been closely -- if uneasily -- allied against Islamist extremists since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Moreover, Pakistan's military has received roughly $6 billion in U.S. aid during that time.

Pakistani officials said Tuesday night that Abbas had been misquoted. A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said late Tuesday that Pakistan would "correct the record" and that the United States enjoyed "good cooperation with Pakistan on the border," the Associated Press reported.

The incident has brought into focus the conflicting agendas and mutual frustrations that have plagued the U.S.-Pakistan military partnership since inception.

Concern also has intensified in Washington and other capitals over whether Pakistan, a nuclear power that is experiencing increasing violence by Islamist extremists, will remain a firm ally under the civilian leadership that this year replaced longtime military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

As Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have gained strength and influence, staging hundreds of attacks against military and civilian targets this year and taking control of many rural areas, U.S. officials have increasingly sought to deny them safe haven among like-minded militants in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Pakistan's army recently launched a series of large operations against Islamist militants in some tribal areas, but only after a long period of half-hearted or failed actions that have frustrated U.S. officials. At the same time, Pakistani officials have insisted that no foreign troops enter their sovereign territory. So the U.S. raids this month have put them in an awkward position.

"Every country has certain red lines. The army wants to have good relations with the U.S., but it cannot tolerate operations on its turf," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general, speaking from Islamabad. "These American operations have caused a lot of collateral damage. . . . Some Pakistanis think the Americans may want to stabilize Afghanistan at the cost of destabilizing Pakistan."

Although Pakistani officials routinely declare support for the war against Islamist militants, they are keenly aware that public support for it in their country is deeply ambivalent and that Musharraf was ousted in part because many Pakistanis viewed him as doing America's bidding. The new president, Asif Ali Zardari, has said nothing about the U.S. raids and is increasingly criticized as being too close to Washington.

Some analysts said the new U.S.-Pakistan tensions might undermine what they called the growing success of Pakistani operations against militants.

"The U.S. actions show a lack of confidence in Pakistan, which the army must be very unhappy about, considering their increasingly successful attacks," said Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani military scholar based in Washington. "My biggest fear is that people will latch onto this and turn it into a rallying cry against the government. It is a very dangerous moment, and if it is not smoothed over, U.S.-Pakistani relations are headed for a train wreck."

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report from the Pentagon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091601956.html
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21 Foreigners Among Dead in Islamabad Suicide Bomb Blast
Two Americans With Embassy Killed in Attack


By Shaiq Hussain and Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 22, 2008


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 21 -- Pakistani officials said Sunday that 21 foreigners, including two Americans stationed at the U.S. Embassy, were among the victims of a massive suicide truck bombing Saturday night that destroyed a luxury Marriott hotel in the capital.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said the bomber's intended target was Gillani's official residence a block from the hotel, where newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari and other officials were gathered to break their daily Ramadan fast when the bomb exploded about 8 p.m.

"The purpose was to destabilize democracy," Gillani said.

As rescue teams combed the still-smoldering five-story building, officials put the death toll at 53, with an unknown number of people unaccounted for. At least 266 people were injured. Most of the victims were hotel workers.

A spokesman for the Pentagon in Washington said Sunday that the two Americans killed in the blast were members of the U.S. defense forces assigned to the U.S. Embassy here. Their names were not released.

Pakistani officials said a contingent of 30 U.S. Marines was thought to be staying in the 290-room hotel.

A senior government security adviser, Rehman Malik, pointed the finger at Islamist militant groups based in South Waziristan, a volatile tribal area near the border with Afghanistan. These groups have vowed to retaliate against the government for stepped-up military raids and for a series of U.S. military incursions in pursuit of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

"All roads lead to South Waziristan and Tehrik-e-Taliban," Malik said, referring to a militant group headed by Baitullah Mehsud, who has repeatedly vowed to attack the government after a truce with his forces collapsed last year.

Malik showed journalists a dramatic video of the attack, in which a large dump truck rammed into a metal barrier near the hotel and caught fire. The video showed guards scattering, trying to put out the blaze, and scattering again when the driver kept going, detonating the huge blast.

Marriott said in a statement Saturday that several hotel guards who had gone out to examine the truck were among the dead.

The truck had been packed with 1,300 pounds of military explosives, mortars and other weapons, Malik said. The bombing was timed to coincide with the fast-breaking meal, when guards were eating and likely to be distracted.

Malik said the attack was intended to destroy the hotel, a center of social and political life in the Pakistani capital and a frequent choice of foreign visitors. The ambassador from the Czech Republic was among the dead, officials said.

Security and political analysts in Pakistan said the carefully planned bombing, the worst terror attack in the capital, could force the government to prove it is serious about combating terrorism or admit defeat.

"If they don't rise to this challenge, they are finished," said Talat Masood, a retired army general and defense analyst here. "I am not sure they have the capacity to take on such determined militants. To those who call this America's war, the government must make absolutely clear that this is Pakistan's war and how it plans to meet the challenge."

Zardari left Pakistan on Sunday for the United States, where he will address the United Nations and meet with President Bush. Several hours before the bombing, Zardari gave his first speech to Parliament, calling terrorism a disease and saying the government sought to free the country from its grip.

The United States and Pakistan have collaborated closely in the war against terrorism. But their relations have soured in recent weeks after a series of U.S. military operations in Pakistan's northwest tribal areas, including airstrikes and a commando raid, that have aroused protests from the public and the military.

"This attack is a payback to the new Pakistani government for its alliance with the U.S.," said Rifaat Hussain, a defense expert at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. "It is a direct challenge to the writ of the state, a message that they have lethal reach and can strike any target of their choosing."

Malik said the government had refused an offer from the FBI to help investigate the bombing, adding that Pakistani agencies were capable of doing the job alone.

Although Malik appeared to blame Mehsud's local Taliban movement, which seeks to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law in the tribal region, other Pakistani officials said "foreign" fighters were to blame, suggesting an al-Qaeda connection.

Gillani, speaking in the city of Lahore on Sunday, said that "tribals are patriotic" and that the terrorist threat to Pakistan comes from "a few foreign people." Pakistani officials and journalists have reported that Chechens, Uzbeks and other foreigners are among those fighting against government forces.

Constable reported from Kabul.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...48.html?sub=AR
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Post Bush, Zardari to discuss US incursions in Pakistan

Bush, Zardari to discuss US incursions in Pakistan


By DEB RIECHMANN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 23, 2008


NEW YORK -- U.S. military incursions into Pakistan that have stoked anti-Americanism top the agenda for President Bush's talks with the newly elected president of the Muslim nation, which is reeling from a deadly truck bomb that devastated a Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

Publicly, Bush and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who were to meet Tuesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, will exhibit a show of solidarity against extremists. Privately, the two leaders will be trying to craft a delicate strategy to make progress in fighting militants while keeping U.S.-Pakistan relations on an even keel until Bush leaves office in four months.

Pakistan is under growing pressure from the United States to act against al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents along its border with Afghanistan, a staging ground for attacks against coalition troops in Afghanistan and bombings in Pakistan. Pakistan accuses the U.S. of violating its sovereignty. But with little political clout, it's unclear whether Zardari can muster the domestic support he needs, especially from the Pakistani military, to step up the fight against terrorists inside his own nation.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the weekend hotel bombing, which killed 53 people, including two Defense Department employees, and wounded hundreds was an attempt to "destabilize democracy" in Pakistan and destroy its already fragile economy.

In his meeting, Bush was expected to seek greater cooperation from Zardari, reiterating the White House position that the Marriott bombing is evidence that Pakistanis themselves are under siege from extremists living within their borders. Zardari is expected to tell Bush that the cross-border attacks by the U.S. are actually weakening his political standing among Pakistanis who believe U.S. meddling in the region is fueling the terrorist attacks.

"It's a tough spot for both countries," said Hilton Root, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written extensively on Pakistan. "People are angry with the U.S. It is the belief on the street in Pakistan that we are stirring things up, creating animosity and fueling the fire."

"The message from the bombing is very, very clear: Nothing is safe in Pakistan," said Root, who claims U.S. policy in Pakistan has failed. "The government is not able to deliver. I think most Pakistanis are scared. I think they think the future of their country is on the line."

Looking beyond Bush, Zardari is meeting with GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin _ a sitdown on Wednesday that will help Palin pad her thin foreign policy credentials and give Zardari a photo op with a media magnet on the U.S. presidential campaign trail.

After Tuesday's meeting with Zardari, Bush will give his final address to the assembly, and talk at least in general terms about the U.S. financial crisis. He is to express his views about terrorism, push his freedom agenda and talk about how he thinks multinational groups like the United Nations need to be accountable and more focused on results.

"I personally would like to see and hear much greater U.S. presidential emphasis on diplomacy and on the potential use of the mediating and pacifying roles of the United Nations, as distinct from military force ... in working out practical solutions with Iran, for example," said Alan Henrikson, a professor and director of diplomatic studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. "Much greater involvement of the U.N. General Assembly in diplomacy, across the board, should be embraced by the United States, including President Bush. It would be a nice gesture."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092300114.html
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Post Pakistan Picks New Chief For Intelligence Agency

Pakistan Picks New Chief For Intelligence Agency


By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 30, 2008


The Pakistani government has selected a new chief for its powerful intelligence service, the ISI, replacing a figure the Bush administration has long suspected of ties to Taliban extremists and other militant groups in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, according to diplomatic and administration officials.

The officials said that Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the director general of military operations for the Pakistani army since 2005, is expected to be officially named ISI head next week. Said to be close to army chief Ashfaq Kiyani, Pasha will replace Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, who was chosen for the post by retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the former Pakistani president.

Bush administration officials expressed cautious optimism about the appointment. "It is a chance for the new government to work out a set of new directions for the ISI," one official said. The administration and Congress have repeatedly expressed concern that ties between the Pakistani intelligence service and the Taliban have undermined U.S. and NATO efforts to stem cross-border attacks by Pakistan-based extremists.

U.S. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, said last month that he was certain there was "a level of ISI complicity" with the Taliban and other extremist organizations. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has raised similar complaints. The Pakistani government acknowledged that rogue intelligence officers might be involved with extremists but denied allegations of high-level support from the ISI, which stands for Inter-Services Intelligence.


Beginning with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani's visit to Washington in May, the administration has pressed his government to take control of the ISI, a message also conveyed during repeated visits to Pakistan this year by high-level U.S. military and intelligence officials. Last week, President Bush met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the United Nations.

The decision to replace Taj comes as the administration is conducting a widespread review of its strategy in the faltering Afghanistan war. In July, Bush approved an order allowing U.S. commandos to conduct ground operations in Pakistan's western tribal areas, a mountainous region where the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other extremist groups are thought to operate. The Pakistani government vigorously protested an incursion by U.S. forces this month and its forces fired last week at two U.S. helicopters in the border region.

Diplomatic and administration officials said that the opportunity to remove Taj came with a regular military rotation and that several other senior ISI officials are expected to be transferred. Taj will retain his military rank and be given another assignment, they said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...65.html?sub=AR
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