Wednesday, December 22, 2010
KABUL/WASHINGTON: Top US military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing to expand ground raids by special operations forces across the border in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Amid growing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts to remove terrorists from strongholds there, some US officials want to escalate military activities in the nuclear-armed nation, the paper said.
US forces have been restricted to limited covert operations and unmanned drone strikes in Pakistan, where the US alliance provokes widespread anger and the government has described American boots on the ground as a “red line”.
But the story was denied by a spokesman for ISAF, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, who said there was “absolutely no truth” to any suggestion that ground operations into Pakistan were planned. “ISAF and US forces, along with their Afghan partners, have developed a strong working relationship with the Pakistan military to address shared security issues,” said Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, its deputy chief of staff for communication.
“This coordination recognises the sovereignty of Afghanistan and Pakistan to pursue insurgents and terrorists operating in their respective border areas.”
Even limited operations have provoked angry public reactions from Pakistani officials, although US cables recently released by WikiLeaks suggest that the political and military leadership has quietly approved the activities. The US does not confirm drone attacks, but its military and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the aircraft in the region.
With Washington keen to start withdrawing some US troops from Afghanistan next July, military and political leaders point to a renewed sense of urgency. Military commanders told the newspaper that the special operations plan – which has not yet been approved – could help them secure much-needed intelligence if terrorists were captured, brought back across the border into Afghanistan and interrogated. US officials said they were particularly keen to capture rather than kill terrorist leaders from the Taliban or the Haqqani network in order to obtain intelligence about future operations.
“We’ve never been as close as we are now to getting the go-ahead to go across,” a senior US officer said.
A senior official from US President Barack Obama’s administration also told the newspaper he did not favour cross-border operations, saying they have been mostly “counterproductive” unless they targeted top al Qaeda leaders.
The official worried that political fallout in Pakistan over such operations could counter any tactical gains.
The newspaper said that Afghan militias backed by the CIA have in recent years carried out a number of secret missions into Pakistan. The operations had previously been described as limited to intelligence-gathering. But the report said that recent interviews had revealed that in at least one instance, the Afghans attacked and destroyed a terrorist weapons cache.
Officials who described the proposal for raids and the intelligence operations to the newspaper declined to be identified by name because they were discussing classified information, the report said.
While the White House said Pakistan had taken encouraging steps in cracking down on terrorists, many senior officials appear increasingly exasperated and Obama said “progress has not come fast enough” for his liking. agencies
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\12\22\story_22-12-2010_pg1_1
i guess there have always been cia secret missions into pakistan but not openly like this news is suggesting it will be from now on. i wonder if this report has any truth to it, don’t see it being approved, i wonder what the senior US officer meant by the bold part
