[R-G] U.S. Military Seeks to Widen Pakistan Raids

[Anthony Fenton]

April 20, 2008
U.S. Military Seeks to Widen Pakistan Raids
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/world/asia/20pstan.html?ex=1366344000&en=f31f50e004c515e5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all