Obama threatens to send troops to Pak to shut down Taliban

Sridhar

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'Obama threatens to send troops to Pak to shut down Taliban'
Updated on Tuesday, December 08, 2009, 13:23 IST
Tags:Obama, Pakistan, Taliban
Washington: In a blunt warning, the US has threatened to take "unilateral action" by sending its troops to Pakistan to shut down Taliban and other terrorist camps there, if Islamabad does not take decisive action against them.

The Americans want the Pakistanis to target Haqqani network based in north Waziristan and Taliban supremo Mullah Omar and the members of the groups top Shura, believed to be hiding in Baluchistan.

Washington feels that Pakistani forces have so far refused to attack against these two Taliban groups, The New York Times reported quoting American and Pakistani officials.

The Times said, "The US was prepared to take unilateral action to expand Predator drone attacks beyond the tribal areas and, if needed, to resume raids by Special Operations forces into the country against al Qaeda and Taliban leaders".

"The blunt message was delivered in a tense encounter in Pakistan last month, before President Barack Obama announced his new war strategy when Gen James Jones, Obama's national security adviser, and John O Brennan, the White House counter terrorism chief, met with the heads of Pakistan's military and its intelligence service," the paper said.

US officials said the message did not amount to an ultimatum but rather it was intended to "prod a reluctant Pakistani military" to go after Taliban insurgents in Pakistan who are directing attacks in Afghanistan.

A senior administration official, asked about the encounter, declined to go into details but added quickly, "I think they read our intentions accurately."

A Pakistani official who has been briefed on the meetings said, "Jones's message was if Pakistani help wasn't forthcoming, the United States would have to do it themselves."

American commanders said earlier this year that they were considering expanding drone strikes in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, but General Jones's comments marked the first time that the US bluntly told Pakistan it would have to choose between leading attacks against the insurgents inside the country's borders or stepping aside to let the Americans do it.

The implicit threat of not only ratcheting up the drone strikes but also launching more covert American ground raids would mark a substantial escalation of the administration's counterterrorism campaign, New York Times said.

American Special Operations forces attacked Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan in early September 2008, in the first publicly acknowledged case of US forces conducting a ground raid on Pakistani soil.

But the raid caused a political furore in Pakistan, with the country's top generals condemning the attack, and the US backed off what had been a planned series of such strikes.

"We've offered them a strategic choice," one administration official was quoted as saying by the daily.

"And we've heard back almost nothing." Another administration official said, "Our patience is wearing thin." At the same time, the White House officially refused to make any comment on the harsh message delivered to Pakistan.

"We have no comment on private diplomatic correspondence. As the President has said repeatedly, we will continue to partner with Pakistan and the international community to enhance the military, governance and economic capacity of Afghanistan and Pakistan," Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

The daily said during his intensive review of Pakistan and Afghanistan strategy, Obama concluded that no amount of additional troops in Afghanistan would succeed in their new mission if the Taliban could retreat over the Pakistani border to regroup and re-supply. But the administration has said little about the Pakistani part of the strategy, it noted.

"We concluded early on that whatever you do with Pakistan, you don't want to talk about it much," a senior presidential aide said last week. "All it does is get backs up in Islamabad," the presidential aide was quoted as saying.

Even before Obama announced his decision last week, the White House had approved an expansion of the CIA's drone programme in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.


Pakistani officials, wary of civilian casualties and the appearance of further infringement of national sovereignty, are still in discussions with American officials over whether to allow the CIA to expand its missile strikes into Baluchistan for the first time, a politically delicate move because it is outside the tribal areas.

American commanders say this is necessary because Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who ran Afghanistan before the 2001 invasion, and other Taliban leaders are hiding in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province.

Pakistani officials also voice concern that if the Pakistani Army were to aggressively attack the two groups that most concern the US, the militants would respond with waves of retaliatory bombings, further undermining the weak civilian government.

PTI
http://www.business-standard.com/in...d-troops-to-pak-to-shut-down-taliban/80234/on
 

Yusuf

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None of the previous blunt comments from the Americans has ever materialized. Hope it does this time as Obama has 18 months and counting from from his own deadline.
 

indian_blues

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Since USA and Nato having hard times with talibans in afghanistan how come a malnourished pakistan army going to take out world's deadliest terror groups. I think USA has some grand plan.
 

Yusuf

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The US and Nato forces dont have what Pakistan has. The knob of the tap that runs the terror network.
 

ppgj

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Analysis: Hard reality as US pushes Pakistan

By ANNE GEARAN (AP) – 10 hours ago

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan will not go as far as Washington wants, and there's nothing the U.S. can do about it: That's the sobering reality as the U.S. tries to persuade a hesitant Pakistan to finish off the fight against terrorists.

Expand the current assault against the Taliban? Pakistan has made clear that will happen only on its own terms. U.S. officials acknowledge that so far they haven't won the argument that militants who target America are enemies of Pakistan, too.

The U.S. has offered Pakistan $7.5 billion in nonmilitary aid plus more to help Pakistan go after terrorists. The assistance is intended to help Pakistan speed up its fight not only against internal militants, but also against al-Qaida and Taliban leaders hiding near the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistanis are deeply suspicious of America's power and motives, making it difficult for their leaders to accede to Washington's pressure in public, lest they look like U.S. puppets.

U.S. officials say that while Pakistani officials cooperate more in private, there are definite limits. The U.S. wanted Pakistan to move forces deeper into the tribal belt before winter. It didn't happen, and might not at all.

A senior U.S. diplomat hinted at a separate agreement that would allow the U.S. itself to take on some of the hidden war against Pakistan's militants.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive talks with Pakistan, the diplomat said last week that more U.S. action is expected against the Haqqani network, led by longtime resistance fighter and former U.S. ally Jalaluddin Haqqani. His network, based in the Waziristan tribal area in northwest Pakistan, reportedly has strong ties with al-Qaida and targets U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan from across the border.

The diplomat said the stepped-up U.S. action would come with Pakistani support, but would not elaborate on the potential cooperation.

Pakistani officials claim they have targeted the Haqqani leadership, albeit unsuccessfully, and will go after the network when the time is right. Some U.S. officials believe that, others don't.

Military officials say the Haqqani problem illustrates how the United States sometimes needs Pakistan more than the other way around.

The U.S. military now counts the Haqqani network as the single gravest threat to U.S. forces fighting over the border in Afghanistan, and badly wants Pakistan to push the militants from their border refuges. But the Pakistani answer seems to be that unless and until the Haqqanis threaten Pakistan, they won't be a priority.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the latest U.S. official to make the case in a visit to Pakistan's capital last week.

More than most U.S. officials, Mullen has cordial, long-standing relationships with Pakistan's generals, the strongest power base inside the country. Despite those ties, Mullen's quiet effort met with a polite noncommittal from his hosts.

Mullen advises patience and humility in dealing with Pakistan, a view not shared by some leading Republicans in Congress. Mullen said Pakistan doesn't get enough credit for the push since spring against militants in the Swat valley and South Waziristan.

"Too many people eagerly and easily criticize Pakistan for what they have not done," Mullen said Sunday, days after Pakistan's military leaders took Mullen on a tour of a reclaimed Swat.

"When I go to Swat, and look at what they did there on the military I think it's pretty extraordinary."

Most of the groups aligned against the U.S. are in North Waziristan, a tribal area not pressed hard by Pakistan's army. The only firepower directed at militants there comes from American missile-loaded drones.

Mullen told students at Pakistan's National Defense University that the U.S. is concerned about what it sees as a growing coordination among terrorist networks in and around Pakistan.

"I do not, certainly, claim that they are great friends, but they are collaborating in ways that quite frankly, scare me quite a bit," Mullen said last week.

He did not come out and say Pakistan needs to expand the fight against militants. But his point was clear.

In an exchange of letters over recent weeks, Obama asked for more cooperation and Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, pledged some additional help, U.S. officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private correspondence.

Zardari, reflecting the views of Pakistan's powerful military, said his government will move against militants that attack U.S. forces when it is able to do so, the officials said.

That leaves ample room for Pakistan's civilian leaders to pursue their own agenda — and on their own schedule.

Without additional pressure from inside Pakistan, the only other option is for the U.S. to finish the fight against terrorists on its own. But Pakistan doesn't allow outright U.S. military action on its soil.

Mullen seemed to recognize that when he told the military students that he knows the U.S. is perceived as acting in its own interests almost at any cost, so it can hardly ask others not to put their own needs first.

"Sometimes that gets lost on us," he said.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Anne Gearan has covered national security policy for The Associated Press since 2004.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Associated Press: Analysis: Hard reality as US pushes Pakistan
 

M1A1Tanker

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Seeing that I am not a bad guy and would like to see a sudden drop dead end to the Taliwhacker clown college I would have to say that the only way the Pakistani Government is going to speed up the rat extermination is if the Taliban are pushed over the border and forced all the way out of Afghanistan...hence the surge.

One thing I have noticed in the Taliban videos is the lack of dead bodies when they attack Pakistani fuel trains (truck convoys) heading to A-stan. Matter of fact last video I saw shows the truck drivers watching the burn as they walked away...

But hey, opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one.... :tank:
 

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