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Bush’s secret orders to launch ground attacks inside Pakistan; Generals seething with anger

	September 15, 2008

America’s relations with Pakistan are headed for a new low following reports that some time ago, President Bush authorized US forces in charge of special operations in Afghanistan to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without Islamabad’s approval.



The classified orders were “secretly approved” by Bush in July, reported the NEW YORK TIMES, citing senior American officials. Unnamed American officials said the US special forces in Afghanistan would merely notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks like the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border, but they “will not ask it for permission.”



The orders for ground attacks were confirmed publicly by none other than the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who told a Congressional hearing that he was “looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region” that would cover “both sides” of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Mullen’s remarks also corroborated a new policy that was evident last week when American Navy Seals swept into Pakistan in an airborne attack to take out terrorists. Some two dozen people were killed. The raid caused outrage in Pakistan which said civilians, including women and children, were killed.



The NEW YORK TIMES reported this on the eve of the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack and two days after President Bush specifically mentioned “parts of Pakistan” as “a third front in the war on terror that the US is engaged in”, the other two being Iraq and Afghanistan. Addressing National Defence University on Sept. 9, Bush said that defeating terrorists and extremists was in the interest of Pakistan. He clubbed “parts of Pakistan” and Afghanistan as being regions that “pose a unique challenge for our country”. He accused the “enemies of a free Afghanistan” of benefiting from “their sanctuary in Pakistan”. “These extremists are increasingly using Pakistan as a base from which to destabilize Afghanistan”, he said.



President Bush has also sought the help of Britain in extending the war to Pakistan. According to the GUARDIAN, a British daily, Bush in a video conference conversation with Brown on Sept. 12 enlisted the UK’s support when they discussed the work of the US and NATO troops in Afghanistan as well as the problem of militant infiltration from the Pakistani side into Afghanistan. Brown has already given some signs of supporting America’s new approach. Before talking to Bush, Brown said, “What is happening on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan is something where we need to develop a new strategy”.



The CIA drones have for several years fired missiles at militants inside Pakistan through remote control. But the new orders for the military’s Special Operations forces relax the firm restrictions on conducting ground raids on the soil of an important ally without its permission.



New US missile attack - misses Haqqani but kills an Al-Qaeda leader

Even as the Pakistani leadership was seething with anger at the ground attack and the threat of more incursions, US drones fired more missiles inside Pakistan killing 16 people on Sept. 8. The missiles hit a sprawling complex comprising a house and a religious seminary or madrasa founded by Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani near Miranshah, the main town of the North Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border. Ten militants and a sister and a sister-in-law and two nieces of Haqqani as well as two children were killed in the attack. According to an eyewitness in Dandi Darpakhell, the village which was hit, two drones fired three missiles at the madrasa founded by Haqqani. Haqqani was a commander of the US-backed Afghan war against the Soviet invasion in the 1970s and 1980s and his links with Bin Laden go back to the late 1980s. He is said to be in ill-health and his son, Sirajuddin, has been leading the Haqqani group.



Some reports say the air strike killed the chief of the Al-Qaeda’s Pakistan unit, Abu Haris. According to sources close to Haqqani, four guards and two wives of Abu Haris were also killed in the attack.



Pakistan, as usual, once again lodged a protest with the US over the missile attack and vowing again to resist any attempt to harm its sovereignty.



Meanwhile, Pakistan also claimed to have killed 130 militants in a major crackdown by its army against local Taliban in the country’s troubled Bajaur tribal region.





Ground incursions – Pak threatens to retaliate

In a sharp reaction to the report that President Bush has issued secret orders to launch ground incursions in hot pursuit of the Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, Islamabad has threatened to retaliate if it finds American ground troops operating on Pakistani soil. In a swift and strong response, the Pakistan Army Chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, declared, “The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all costs and no external forces are allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan.” He warned the US that trust deficit and misunderstandings could lead to more complications and increase the difficulties for all. Maj.Gen. Athar Abbas said the Pakistani military will not hesitate to retaliate if they found American forces on Pakistani soil. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani supported Gen. Kayani’s comments. He said the Government would take all steps to defend the country’s borders.



The orders for ground incursions, issued after months of internal debate, are being seen as a watershed in the Bush Administration’s approach to the campaign against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda after months of stalemate on how to challenge them in their havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The new orders reflect concern about safe havens for Al-Qaeda and Taliban inside Pakistan as well as an American view that Pakistan lacks the will and capability to combat militants. Sources in Washington also illustrate lingering American distrust of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies and a belief that some past US operations had been compromised once Pakistanis were told of their details. Speculation is rife in US security circles that the Pentagon and the CIA have honed new techniques that will enable them to hunt terrorists more effectively – the reason being advanced for a decline in violence in Iraq. The same techniques appear to be in force in Pakistan. Seven years after former President Musharraf joined the American-led war on terrorism post 9/11, Washington’s patience on Pakistani ability to deliver in the battle against extremism seems to have run out.





Islamabad blamed for strong US response

Commenting on the secret orders to carry out ground attacks, political observers said that if there is truth in the story, then President Bush cannot be faulted for stepping up America’s response to launching cross-border jihadi violence in Afghanistan from “hot pursuit” to “ground assault”. It is borne out by the recent assaults by American forces on jihadi strongholds in Pakistan’s frontier tribal areas where the writ of Kalashnikov-toting mullahs, and not that of the Federal Government of Pakistan, runs. To quote a senior US official, the Americans have simply decided to be “more assertive”. As a result, American Special Forces, backed by helicopter gtunships, have begun to raid border villages. In one such raid in South Waziristan last week, more than 20 people were killed. Islamabad, alarmed by the turn of events and Washington’s rapidly eroding faith in the civilian Government’s ability to put an end to the jihadi anarchy that prevails in Pakistan, has sought to shore up its credibility by denouncing the raids and describing those killed as “innocent” victims. This is clearly aimed at pandering to Islamists who are demanding an immediate end to Pakistan’s cooperation with the US against terrorism. Even in the days of President Musharraf, the US came to believe that Pakistan was not serious in its commitment to combat extremists operating from its soil. US officials and observers, as well as those from the larger international community, have been making this point – sometimes in private, sometimes publicly – for a while now. However, the Bush Administration chose to ignore such warnings and placed its trust in Pervez Musharraf’s support to fighting terror. This policy, it is now clear, has paid little dividends. It is under Musharraf’s watch that the Taliban made inroads into and consolidated its hold over swathes of Pakistani territory contiguous with the Afghan border. It is from these safe havens that terrorists have struck American and NATO troops in Afghanistan and ensured that efforts to bring about some stability in the war-torn country come to naught. By taking its eyes off Afghanistan and devoting itself to the Iraq war, America lost the focus. The result is there for all to see: Afghanistan and Pakistan pose the biggest threat to global security today.



Rather belatedly, Bush announced last week that he would be withdrawing some troops from Iraq by early next year and deploying more forces in Afghanistan. However, it is anybody’s guess how much the new dispensation in Pakistan will cooperate with America in the mission to root out terrorism. Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, has warned that US strikes on Pakistani soil could be counterproductive, driving more people into the Taliban fold. The ISI and the Pakistani Army are not going to be willing allies. It is part of their game plan to keep both India and Afghanistan on the edge by tacitly supporting the Taliban.





Gen. Kayani knew of ISI hand in Indian Embassy attack – US officials

Meanwhile, CIA and other US officials believe that not only was the bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul in July by militants aided by ISI operatives but also the highest levels of Pakistan’s security apparatus, including Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, had knowledge of the plot. According to the NEW YORK TIMES [Sept. 11], American intelligence agencies believe that senior Pakistani national security officials favour the use of militant groups to preserve Islamabad’s influence in the region as a hedge against India and Afghanistan.