This is an interesting development.. Apparently, the Obama admin is covinced that Quetta is the base of operations, behind the financing of the Fata terrorists.
In a series of interviews – for the most part given anonymously due to the sensitivity of the information – the New York Times has discovered that the Obama administration plans to put greater pressure on Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders based in Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan.
The intensified focus is justified by the argument that militant leaders based in Quetta supervise the wider insurgency in northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan by raising money from ‘wealthy Persian Gulf donors,’ channeling it into ‘guns and fresh fighters’ on the battlefield. According to the NY Times, one former intelligence official has likened the situation to that faced by American troops in the Vietnam War, when guerillas used Cambodia as a bastion and refuge.
‘We’ve made progress going into the tribal areas and the North-West Frontier Province against al-Qaeda, but we have not had a counterpart war against the Quetta shura,’ one senior Obama administration official told the NY Times.
Till now, Taliban militants in Balochistan have been sheltered due to the isolation of the region and the general lack of an effective government presence within the province. As Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani admitted: ‘the problem is we do not always get actionable intelligence in Quetta in particular. It’s a very messy area.’
However, increased US focus on Taliban forces in the region has coalesced into a greater desire to target high-value individuals within militant organizations. ‘The Quetta shura is extremely important,’ US Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, an advisor to CENTCOM chief General David Petraeus, told the NY Times. ‘They are the intellectual and ideological underpinnings of the Taliban insurgency,’ he concluded.
DAWN.COM | Balochistan | US hints at more focus on ?Quetta shura?: NYTimes