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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
US says bin Laden sometimes slips into Afghanistan
By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer
WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden may periodically slip back into Afghanistan from his remote hideout in neighboring Pakistan, a senior White House official says, adding a new twist to the mystery of the elusive terrorist's whereabouts.
President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be spending some time in Afghanistan, where he was based while plotting the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
But Obama's Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, said the U.S. has lacked good intelligence on bin Laden for a long time — "I think it has been years" — and did not confirm that he'd slipped into Afghanistan.
Jones and Gates spoke Sunday on separate TV interview shows as part of an administration effort to explain and defend Obama's new Afghan war strategy, which Gates said includes a focus on preventing al-Qaida from again gaining a foothold inside Afghanistan. A concern is that the Taliban, if permitted to regain power in Kabul, could facilitate a return of al-Qaida's leadership.
The failed hunt for bin Laden has been one of the signature frustrations of the global war on terrorism that former President George W. Bush launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. When U.S. forces ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001, bin Laden fled into Pakistan from his mountain redoubt. Despite being isolated, bin Laden has managed to periodically issue audio messages.
The main explanation given by both the Bush and Obama administrations for not getting bin Laden is that they simply don't know where he is.
"If we did, we'd go get him," Gates said Sunday.
Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden and spoke of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him.
Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether the administration has reliable intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts, Jones replied, "The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border."
Jones did not comment on the intelligence behind that estimate, nor did he cite a time period or describe more specifically bin Laden's apparent border crossings.
Gates told ABC's "This Week" that "we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is," although he agreed that his likely location is North Waziristan.
That's part of the loosely governed Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwest Pakistan where the border with Afghanistan is largely unrecognized and unmarked. There is little Pakistani government or military control in this remote region, and militants affiliated with al-Qaida can move freely across the frontier into Afghanistan.
The U.S. has targeted North Waziristan and other areas on the Pakistan side of the border with drone-launched missile strikes, killing substantial numbers of militants as well as Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani army has undertaken an offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan but it has not expanded the effort into North Waziristan.
Obama administration officials have often asserted, as did the Bush administration, that they believe bin Laden is being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the border, along with other senior al-Qaida leaders. But Jones broke new ground by saying publicly that the al-Qaida chief may at times have slipped back into Afghanistan.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made a somewhat similar, if less specific, remark Sunday about bin Laden's movements. He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that knowledgeable people have told him that bin Laden "moves back and forth."
Two Afghan provinces in the country's northeast held particular attraction for bin Laden in the 1990s: Kunar and Nuristan. The towering mountains there hid bin Laden training camps that date back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. A longtime bin Laden ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, holds sway in the area. U.S. troops have targeted Hekmatyar's security chief, Kashmir Khan, in Kunar.
During his years in Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban, bin Laden operated mainly in the southern region around Kandahar.
Gates said he does not blame a lack of Pakistani cooperation for the absence of intelligence on bin Laden.
"No, I think it's because if, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time," Gates said, adding that although the Pakistani government has its own priorities, any pressure it brings on the Taliban is helpful because it is in league with al-Qaida.
During a visit to Pakistan in late October, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a stir by chiding Pakistani officials for failing to press the hunt for al-Qaida inside their borders. She said she found it "hard to believe" that no one in Islamabad knows where the al-Qaida leaders are hiding and couldn't get them "if they really wanted to."
Gates said he could not confirm recent news reports that bin Laden had been seen in Afghanistan earlier this year. BBC News reported last week that a Taliban detainee in Pakistan claimed to have met in January or February with an unidentified associate who said he had seen bin Laden just days earlier in Afghanistan, possibly in Ghazni province.
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Kabul contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091207/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_afghanistan
WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden may periodically slip back into Afghanistan from his remote hideout in neighboring Pakistan, a senior White House official says, adding a new twist to the mystery of the elusive terrorist's whereabouts.
President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be spending some time in Afghanistan, where he was based while plotting the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
But Obama's Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, said the U.S. has lacked good intelligence on bin Laden for a long time — "I think it has been years" — and did not confirm that he'd slipped into Afghanistan.
Jones and Gates spoke Sunday on separate TV interview shows as part of an administration effort to explain and defend Obama's new Afghan war strategy, which Gates said includes a focus on preventing al-Qaida from again gaining a foothold inside Afghanistan. A concern is that the Taliban, if permitted to regain power in Kabul, could facilitate a return of al-Qaida's leadership.
The failed hunt for bin Laden has been one of the signature frustrations of the global war on terrorism that former President George W. Bush launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. When U.S. forces ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001, bin Laden fled into Pakistan from his mountain redoubt. Despite being isolated, bin Laden has managed to periodically issue audio messages.
The main explanation given by both the Bush and Obama administrations for not getting bin Laden is that they simply don't know where he is.
"If we did, we'd go get him," Gates said Sunday.
Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden and spoke of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him.
Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether the administration has reliable intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts, Jones replied, "The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border."
Jones did not comment on the intelligence behind that estimate, nor did he cite a time period or describe more specifically bin Laden's apparent border crossings.
Gates told ABC's "This Week" that "we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is," although he agreed that his likely location is North Waziristan.
That's part of the loosely governed Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwest Pakistan where the border with Afghanistan is largely unrecognized and unmarked. There is little Pakistani government or military control in this remote region, and militants affiliated with al-Qaida can move freely across the frontier into Afghanistan.
The U.S. has targeted North Waziristan and other areas on the Pakistan side of the border with drone-launched missile strikes, killing substantial numbers of militants as well as Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani army has undertaken an offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan but it has not expanded the effort into North Waziristan.
Obama administration officials have often asserted, as did the Bush administration, that they believe bin Laden is being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the border, along with other senior al-Qaida leaders. But Jones broke new ground by saying publicly that the al-Qaida chief may at times have slipped back into Afghanistan.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made a somewhat similar, if less specific, remark Sunday about bin Laden's movements. He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that knowledgeable people have told him that bin Laden "moves back and forth."
Two Afghan provinces in the country's northeast held particular attraction for bin Laden in the 1990s: Kunar and Nuristan. The towering mountains there hid bin Laden training camps that date back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. A longtime bin Laden ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, holds sway in the area. U.S. troops have targeted Hekmatyar's security chief, Kashmir Khan, in Kunar.
During his years in Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban, bin Laden operated mainly in the southern region around Kandahar.
Gates said he does not blame a lack of Pakistani cooperation for the absence of intelligence on bin Laden.
"No, I think it's because if, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time," Gates said, adding that although the Pakistani government has its own priorities, any pressure it brings on the Taliban is helpful because it is in league with al-Qaida.
During a visit to Pakistan in late October, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a stir by chiding Pakistani officials for failing to press the hunt for al-Qaida inside their borders. She said she found it "hard to believe" that no one in Islamabad knows where the al-Qaida leaders are hiding and couldn't get them "if they really wanted to."
Gates said he could not confirm recent news reports that bin Laden had been seen in Afghanistan earlier this year. BBC News reported last week that a Taliban detainee in Pakistan claimed to have met in January or February with an unidentified associate who said he had seen bin Laden just days earlier in Afghanistan, possibly in Ghazni province.
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Kabul contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091207/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_afghanistan
Sunday, December 6, 2009
White House still lacks solid intel on bin Laden
By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer
WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden may be slipping back and forth from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Or the U.S. might not have a clue, more than eight years after the al-Qaida leader masterminded the terrorist attacks on America.
Given a chance Sunday to clear away some of the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the world's most wanted terrorist, Obama administration officials seemed to add to it with what appeared to be conflicting assessments.
President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be periodically slipping back into Afghanistan. But Obama's Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, said the U.S. has lacked good intelligence on bin Laden for a long time — "I think it has been years" — and did not confirm that he'd slipped into Afghanistan.
The failed hunt for bin Laden has been one of the signature frustrations of the global war on terrorism that former President George W. Bush launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. The main explanation given by both the Bush and Obama administrations for not getting bin Laden is that they simply don't know where he is.
"If we did, we'd go get him," Gates said.
Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden, and spoke of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him. Bin Laden had been sheltered in Afghanistan by Taliban allies while plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. When U.S. forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001, bin Laden fled into Pakistan from his mountain redoubt.
Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether the administration has reliable intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts, Jones replied, "The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border." He did not comment on the intelligence behind that estimate, nor did he cite a time period or describe more specifically bin Laden's apparent border crossings.
Gates told ABC's "This Week" that "we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is," although he agreed that his likely location is North Waziristan.
That's part of the loosely governed Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwest Pakistan where the border with Afghanistan is largely unrecognized and unmarked. There is little Pakistani government or military control in this remote region, and militants affiliated with al-Qaida can move freely across the frontier into Afghanistan.
The U.S. has targeted North Waziristan and other areas on the Pakistan side of the border with drone-launched missile strikes, killing substantial numbers of militants as well as Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani army has undertaken an offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan but it has not expanded the effort into North Waziristan.
Obama administration officials have often asserted, as did the Bush administration, that they believe bin Laden is being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the border, along with other senior al-Qaida leaders. But Jones broke new ground by saying publicly that the al-Qaida chief may have slipped back into Afghanistan.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made a somewhat similar, if less specific, remark Sunday about bin Laden's movements. He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that knowledgeable people have told him that bin Laden "moves back and forth."
McCain did not elaborate, except to say that although bin Laden is not currently able to establish bases for training and equipping terrorists who would attack the United States, "I think it's important to get him."
Two Afghan provinces in the country's northeast held particular attraction for bin Laden in the 1990s: Kunar and Nuristan. The towering mountains there hid bin Laden training camps that date back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. A longtime bin Laden ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, holds sway in the area. U.S. troops have targeted Hekmatyar's security chief, Kashmir Khan, in Kunar.
During his years in Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban, bin Laden operated mainly in the southern region around Kandahar.
Gates said he does not blame a lack of Pakistani cooperation for the absence of intelligence on bin Laden.
"No, I think it's because if, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time," Gates said, adding that although the Pakistani government has its own priorities, any pressure it brings on the Taliban is helpful because it is in league with al-Qaida.
During a visit to Pakistan in late October, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a stir by chiding Pakistani officials for failing to press the hunt for al-Qaida inside their borders. She said she found it "hard to believe" that no one in Islamabad knows where the al-Qaida leaders are hiding and couldn't get them "if they really wanted to."
Gates said he could not confirm recent news reports that bin Laden had been seen in Afghanistan earlier this year. BBC News reported last week that a Taliban detainee in Pakistan claimed to have met in January or February with an unidentified associate who said he had seen bin Laden just days earlier in Afghanistan, possibly in Ghazni province.
A recent Senate report said bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan only three months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when American military leaders made the crucial decision not to pursue him with massive force.
The report asserted that bin Laden's escape at his most vulnerable in December 2001 laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan. Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
Tommy Franks, the retired Army general who ran the initial war effort in Afghanistan and chief of U.S. Central Command, wrote in his book, "American Soldier," in 2004 that he was confident in late 2001 that al-Qaida could not escape the Afghan forces leading the battle around Tora Bora, supported by heavy air strikes from American warplanes.
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden may be slipping back and forth from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Or the U.S. might not have a clue, more than eight years after the al-Qaida leader masterminded the terrorist attacks on America.
Given a chance Sunday to clear away some of the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the world's most wanted terrorist, Obama administration officials seemed to add to it with what appeared to be conflicting assessments.
President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be periodically slipping back into Afghanistan. But Obama's Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, said the U.S. has lacked good intelligence on bin Laden for a long time — "I think it has been years" — and did not confirm that he'd slipped into Afghanistan.
The failed hunt for bin Laden has been one of the signature frustrations of the global war on terrorism that former President George W. Bush launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. The main explanation given by both the Bush and Obama administrations for not getting bin Laden is that they simply don't know where he is.
"If we did, we'd go get him," Gates said.
Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden, and spoke of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him. Bin Laden had been sheltered in Afghanistan by Taliban allies while plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. When U.S. forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001, bin Laden fled into Pakistan from his mountain redoubt.
Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether the administration has reliable intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts, Jones replied, "The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border." He did not comment on the intelligence behind that estimate, nor did he cite a time period or describe more specifically bin Laden's apparent border crossings.
Gates told ABC's "This Week" that "we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is," although he agreed that his likely location is North Waziristan.
That's part of the loosely governed Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwest Pakistan where the border with Afghanistan is largely unrecognized and unmarked. There is little Pakistani government or military control in this remote region, and militants affiliated with al-Qaida can move freely across the frontier into Afghanistan.
The U.S. has targeted North Waziristan and other areas on the Pakistan side of the border with drone-launched missile strikes, killing substantial numbers of militants as well as Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani army has undertaken an offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan but it has not expanded the effort into North Waziristan.
Obama administration officials have often asserted, as did the Bush administration, that they believe bin Laden is being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the border, along with other senior al-Qaida leaders. But Jones broke new ground by saying publicly that the al-Qaida chief may have slipped back into Afghanistan.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made a somewhat similar, if less specific, remark Sunday about bin Laden's movements. He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that knowledgeable people have told him that bin Laden "moves back and forth."
McCain did not elaborate, except to say that although bin Laden is not currently able to establish bases for training and equipping terrorists who would attack the United States, "I think it's important to get him."
Two Afghan provinces in the country's northeast held particular attraction for bin Laden in the 1990s: Kunar and Nuristan. The towering mountains there hid bin Laden training camps that date back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. A longtime bin Laden ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, holds sway in the area. U.S. troops have targeted Hekmatyar's security chief, Kashmir Khan, in Kunar.
During his years in Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban, bin Laden operated mainly in the southern region around Kandahar.
Gates said he does not blame a lack of Pakistani cooperation for the absence of intelligence on bin Laden.
"No, I think it's because if, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time," Gates said, adding that although the Pakistani government has its own priorities, any pressure it brings on the Taliban is helpful because it is in league with al-Qaida.
During a visit to Pakistan in late October, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a stir by chiding Pakistani officials for failing to press the hunt for al-Qaida inside their borders. She said she found it "hard to believe" that no one in Islamabad knows where the al-Qaida leaders are hiding and couldn't get them "if they really wanted to."
Gates said he could not confirm recent news reports that bin Laden had been seen in Afghanistan earlier this year. BBC News reported last week that a Taliban detainee in Pakistan claimed to have met in January or February with an unidentified associate who said he had seen bin Laden just days earlier in Afghanistan, possibly in Ghazni province.
A recent Senate report said bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan only three months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when American military leaders made the crucial decision not to pursue him with massive force.
The report asserted that bin Laden's escape at his most vulnerable in December 2001 laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan. Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
Tommy Franks, the retired Army general who ran the initial war effort in Afghanistan and chief of U.S. Central Command, wrote in his book, "American Soldier," in 2004 that he was confident in late 2001 that al-Qaida could not escape the Afghan forces leading the battle around Tora Bora, supported by heavy air strikes from American warplanes.
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
Afghan surge poses logistical headache for U.S. army
by Daphne Benoit Daphne Benoit Sun Dec 6, 12:01 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama's order to surge 30,000 troops into Afghanistan presents the US military with a giant logistical challenge as it faces some of the most forbidding terrain in the world.
With few paved roads and a vast, rugged landscape, moving soldiers and equipment into Afghanistan "is a bigger challenge than certainly was the case in Iraq," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month.
Fulfilling Obama's vow to send troops at the "fastest pace possible," the first units of the buildup are due to arrive within two to three weeks, and the military plans to have all the reinforcements in place by the end of next summer.
The Pentagon carried out a similar surge two years ago in Iraq, where it could take advantage of a port, an excellent road network and vast US base in neighboring Kuwait.
"We don't have that in Afghanistan, clearly, and we don't have the infrastructure in Afghanistan," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told reporters last month.
The Pentagon was able to deploy a brigade -- an army unit of up to 5,000 soldiers -- a month during the troop buildup in Iraq and Mullen said the pace will have to be slower in Afghanistan.
The NATO-led mission has to rely more on supplying troops by air in Afghanistan and in the east, steep mountains make soldiers heavily dependent on helicopters.
An estimated 80 percent of military supplies come in through Pakistan, much of it via a single, vulnerable road that threads through the Khyber Pass and has been attacked repeatedly by armed insurgents.
From tanks to armored vehicles to helicopters and warplanes, the Afghan operation consumes huge amounts of fuel, with the military guzzling up to 83 liters or 22 gallons of gasoline per soldier every day.
More troops will require more truck convoys to ferry fuel to remote bases, raising the prospect of more casualties as fuel trucks are coveted targets for Taliban insurgents planting roadside bombs.
To protect soldiers from the lethal homemade bombs, the Pentagon is rushing to deliver a new armored M-ATV vehicle to Afghanistan made to withstand explosions while allowing for off-road driving.
The all-terrain vehicles were commissioned after commanders found that mine-resistant M-RAPs designed for Iraq were too big and cumbersome for Afghanistan.
The Pentagon has delivered at least 41 of the vehicles to Afghanistan and plans to have 5,000 there by March next year, with Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corporation on track to churn out a thousand a month. And Gates has said it was possible double that number could be ordered if needed.
With tens of thousands of troops on the way in the next several months, engineering teams are ramping up construction work to handle the new arrivals.
The soldiers will find conditions sparse and austere.
At the NATO base in Kandahar, soldiers in a US Army Stryker brigade were still constructing their quarters in October and waiting for some of their vehicles to arrive, three months after deploying.
Despite the difficulties, the head of the logistics operation was optimistic supplies would get to the troops on time.
"Looking across our full line of support, I?m confident that we?re on track to supply warfighters with everything they need, whether it?s fuel, spare parts for weapons systems or troop-support items," Vice Admiral Alan Thompson, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, said this week.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama's order to surge 30,000 troops into Afghanistan presents the US military with a giant logistical challenge as it faces some of the most forbidding terrain in the world.
With few paved roads and a vast, rugged landscape, moving soldiers and equipment into Afghanistan "is a bigger challenge than certainly was the case in Iraq," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month.
Fulfilling Obama's vow to send troops at the "fastest pace possible," the first units of the buildup are due to arrive within two to three weeks, and the military plans to have all the reinforcements in place by the end of next summer.
The Pentagon carried out a similar surge two years ago in Iraq, where it could take advantage of a port, an excellent road network and vast US base in neighboring Kuwait.
"We don't have that in Afghanistan, clearly, and we don't have the infrastructure in Afghanistan," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told reporters last month.
The Pentagon was able to deploy a brigade -- an army unit of up to 5,000 soldiers -- a month during the troop buildup in Iraq and Mullen said the pace will have to be slower in Afghanistan.
The NATO-led mission has to rely more on supplying troops by air in Afghanistan and in the east, steep mountains make soldiers heavily dependent on helicopters.
An estimated 80 percent of military supplies come in through Pakistan, much of it via a single, vulnerable road that threads through the Khyber Pass and has been attacked repeatedly by armed insurgents.
From tanks to armored vehicles to helicopters and warplanes, the Afghan operation consumes huge amounts of fuel, with the military guzzling up to 83 liters or 22 gallons of gasoline per soldier every day.
More troops will require more truck convoys to ferry fuel to remote bases, raising the prospect of more casualties as fuel trucks are coveted targets for Taliban insurgents planting roadside bombs.
To protect soldiers from the lethal homemade bombs, the Pentagon is rushing to deliver a new armored M-ATV vehicle to Afghanistan made to withstand explosions while allowing for off-road driving.
The all-terrain vehicles were commissioned after commanders found that mine-resistant M-RAPs designed for Iraq were too big and cumbersome for Afghanistan.
The Pentagon has delivered at least 41 of the vehicles to Afghanistan and plans to have 5,000 there by March next year, with Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corporation on track to churn out a thousand a month. And Gates has said it was possible double that number could be ordered if needed.
With tens of thousands of troops on the way in the next several months, engineering teams are ramping up construction work to handle the new arrivals.
The soldiers will find conditions sparse and austere.
At the NATO base in Kandahar, soldiers in a US Army Stryker brigade were still constructing their quarters in October and waiting for some of their vehicles to arrive, three months after deploying.
Despite the difficulties, the head of the logistics operation was optimistic supplies would get to the troops on time.
"Looking across our full line of support, I?m confident that we?re on track to supply warfighters with everything they need, whether it?s fuel, spare parts for weapons systems or troop-support items," Vice Admiral Alan Thompson, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, said this week.
Bin Laden's location unknown for 'years:' US
The revelation from Gates, speaking in an interview with the ABC News "This Week" program to be aired Sunday, comes days after US President Barack Obama announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Asked if Pakistan was doing enough to apprehend Bin Laden, Gates answered: "Well, we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, we'd go get him."
Referring to the last time US intelligence had a fix on Bin Laden's whereabouts, Gates said: "I think it's been years."
Bin Laden is believed to have escaped from Afghanistan into Pakistan in late 2001.
In excerpts of the interview released ahead of the broadcast, Gates also could not confirm reports about a detainee in Pakistan who claimed he had information on where Bin Laden was earlier this year.
Part of the United States' reason for going to war more than eight years ago in the wake of the September 11 attacks was to kill or capture Bin Laden.
The Al-Qaeda leader is seen as the chief mastermind of the 2001 attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Immediately after the attacks, US government officials named Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda network as the prime suspects and offered a reward of 25 million dollars for information leading to his capture or death.
In 2007, this figure was doubled to 50 million dollars. But so far, the Al-Qaeda founder has eluded capture.
A US Senate report released last week said Bin Laden was "within the grasp" of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements.
The hard-hitting study points the finger directly at Rumsfeld for turning down requests for reinforcements as Bin Laden was trapped in December 2001 in caves and tunnels in a mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora.
"The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the marine corps and the army, was kept on the sidelines," the report says.
"Instead, the US command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack Bin Laden and on Pakistan's loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes."
The report commissioned by Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says Bin Laden expected to die and had even written a will.
"But the Al-Qaeda leader would live to fight another day. Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected.
"Requests were also turned down for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan.
"The decision not to deploy American forces to go after Bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, General Tommy Franks," the report says.
Kerry points out at the beginning of the report that when the United States went to war less than one month after the September 11 attacks, the mission was clear: to destroy Al-Qaeda and kill or capture Bin Laden.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091206/ts_afp/usattacksqaedabinladengatesThe New U.S. Policy in Afghanistan: Evading the Root Problem
The New U.S. Policy in Afghanistan: Evading the Root Problem
Written by Tufail Ahmad and Y. Carmon
Sunday, 06 December 2009 07:26
Memri.org
Introduction
In a speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point on December 1, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke about the future of the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan. He announced his decision to increase U.S. military forces there by 30,000 troops, and asserted that "our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan."
Obama further stressed that "the Pakistani Army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan, and there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.... We are committed to partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual respect and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan's capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries."
While the reinforcement of the U.S. military force in Afghanistan can help in the fight against the Taliban, the president's statements regarding Pakistan seem to evade the root cause of the Pakistan-Afghanistan crisis - namely, Pakistan's role over the past three decades in the region in general and in Afghanistan in particular. Hence, the new U.S. policy may prove to be ineffective. The following analysis will review the main factors in the Pakistan-Afghanistan crisis and will address the question of U.S. policies and their impact.
The Root Causes of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Crisis and their Long-Term Implications
The current situation in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region has been largely shaped by the Pakistani army's support of militant organizations over the past three decades. This ongoing support is rooted in the Pakistani identity and in Pakistan's perception of its role as an Islamic state ever since its creation in 1947.
For more than half of its 62 years, Pakistan was ruled by military officers. But even when it was ruled by civilians, in the debate over Pakistan's identity, secularists and liberal forces have always lost, while the military and the religious groups have always set the nation's agenda and defined its future course.[1] The way the Pakistani leaders view their identity defines their domestic policies and foreign relations. The shaping of the Pakistani identity on the Islamic path has over the years turned Pakistan into an expansionist state, which has translated into the military's policy of "strategic depth." In practical terms, this policy meant a constant concerted effort by the military-led Pakistani establishment to go beyond its borders into India (not only in Kashmir but also the mainland India) and in Afghanistan through the use of militant groups.
This self-perception of Pakistan's role, responsibility and identity is a genie that has been out of the bottle for decades now, and there is no way to get it back in. It has become the most decisive factor in the region's history and politics - so much so that when Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf tried after September 11 to reverse, though reluctantly, the policy of using the militant organizations as "strategic assets," he was not able to do so. In fact, this genie is so strong now that a number of young militant leaders who have emerged in recent years and are more ideologically driven are now beginning to launch attacks on the Pakistani security institutions, particularly since the military began cooperating with the U.S.
After the February 2008 election and the rise of the Zardari-Gilani administration, things only deteriorated further. The Pakistani military continued to dictate the terms of Pakistan's foreign policy, notably when the civilian government was almost face-to-face with a military coup on the issue of the Kerry-Lugar aid legislation passed by the U.S. Congress.[2] If President General Musharraf, who came from the ranks of the military establishment and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), could not reverse the years-long strategy and could not control the militants, the civilian government stands no chance of doing so.
The U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan, which has led to growing pressure on the Pakistani military to reverse the decades-long Pakistani strategy, cannot succeed in achieving its goals either in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Pakistani military is bound to pursue a policy which broadly runs between a) playing a double game with the militant groups by on the one hand attacking them, on the other hand providing them with early warnings and escape routes during various security operations, and b) coddling the militant groups as it does with the favored militant commanders and the Sunni jihadist organizations in the Punjab province, whom the military refrains from attacking.[3]
The Pakistani Military's Role and Responsibility
The current Afghan crisis was caused by the military-led Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which is the final arbiter of power in Pakistan. In mid-1990s, the ISI organized and used the Taliban to remove the warring Afghan mujahideen and warlords from Kabul, and to serve as Pakistan's long arm in Afghanistan. However, after 9/11, the U.S. dislodged the Taliban from Afghanistan, throwing the Pakistani military's Afghan strategy of using the militants in Afghanistan into disarray. The Taliban, and with them Al-Qaeda, retreated to their homebase in Pakistan.
Between 2002 and 2004, there was relative peace in Afghanistan because the Pakistani military did not dare to confront America after its invasion of Afghanistan following September 11. However, in 2005 the ISI finally resumed its policy of strategic depth. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants began moving back into Afghanistan via the Pakistani tribal region. As a result, U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan increased rapidly. U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan were just 12 in 2001. Between 2002 and 2004, the average number of American deaths per year was about 50, but this figure doubled to 99 in 2005, 98 in 2006, and 117 in 2007, tripling to 155 in 2008, and jumping to 298 in 2009 (as of November 30).[4]
To this day, it is the Pakistani military which is the key supporter of the militants in Afghanistan. The militants continue to travel freely across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The key militant groups in Afghanistan, i.e. the Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda, Hizb-e-Islami and the Afghan Taliban, have formed a strong working relationship, with the direction of the militants' strategy in Afghanistan being controlled by the Quetta Taliban Shura, which is the executive council led by Mullah Omar. That body is protected by the ISI, Pakistani intelligence.[5]
Some ISI-backed militant groups are also responsible for attacks in India and Bangladesh. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Muhammad are behind the attacks not only in Indian Kashmir, but also are involved in a series of militant attacks in the mainland India, notably the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. With the support of the ISI, these militant organizations have created the Indian Mujahideen by roping in disaffected Indian Muslim youth. Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami, which has its headquarters in Pakistan, are establishing strong bases in Bangladesh in order to achieve the twin goals of controlling Bangladesh and vandalizing India.
An overall assessment of the battle in Afghanistan on the one hand, and the U.S. drone attacks and the Pakistani army's show of force against the militant groups on the other hand, reveals that the militants are definitely not losing ground. In fact, in Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban, the Hizb-e-Islami militants, and Al-Qaeda are present in all provinces. Moreover, in Pakistan, the Sunni militant organizations based in the Punjab province are not touched by the military. Instead, they are not only growing in number and strength, but are now beginning to hatch international terror plots.[6]
Oft-Discussed Options - Can They Work?
Sending More Troops to Afghanistan to Defeat the Taliban
Even if President Obama had authorized sending of the 40,000 U.S. troops requested by the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, and even if they were to succeed in defeating the Taliban, the victory would be short-lived, because the Taliban would retreat again to their homes in Pakistan as they did before and after the United States invaded Afghanistan following 9/11. They would then resume their infiltration into Afghanistan, as before in 2005-06.
Buying the Taliban Out and/or Including Them in the Political Process
These are not valid options. The Taliban are ideologically driven. Even if they agree to take money and join the political process, they will work to replace the present democratic structure with an Islamic state. Indeed, Saudi efforts to mediate secret Taliban-U.S. talks have borne no fruit.
Even some leaders of the Afghan jihad of the 1980s who joined the political process and became members of the Afghan parliament, such as Burhanuddin Rabbani, have proven unable to serve as a bridge to the Taliban.[7] Gulbadin Hekmatyar, another mujahideen commander of the 1980s, has rejected any talks as long as any foreign troops are present in Afghanistan.[8]
Fighting Only Al-Qaeda
This too is not a valid option. Al-Qaeda is well established in Afghanistan, and collaborates with the Pakistan-based Taliban Shura.[9] There is no practical way to conduct an isolated fight against Al-Qaeda alone. Indeed, a close examination of the Sunni militant organizations based in the Pakistani province of Punjab - e.g. Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi - indicates close interrelationships among them. It also emerges that these organizations have been interacting with the top Al-Qaeda leadership for more than a decade now.
In fact, Al-Qaeda may be a secondary player now, while the Taliban and the Punjab-based groups are working in tandem with each other, and forming the backbone of Al-Qaeda.
A Withdrawal of U.S. Troops from the Conflict Zone
Such a move would significantly strengthen the militant groups and, as a result, enhance the Pakistani military's urge to use them to spread Pakistani control beyond Pakistan's borders.
This in turn will enhance the threat to the whole of South Asia, particularly to India. Given the nuclear arsenals that Pakistan and India have, such a development could endanger the United States itself.
Conclusions
The U.S. is locked in a conflict it cannot win. But it has to keep fighting it to prevent further deterioration of the crisis, which would endanger the whole region and America itself.
President Obama's strategy to build on partnership with Pakistan based on "mutual trust" defies the history and hard reality of the Pakistan-Afghanistan crisis.
Addressing the Pakistani role is indeed a sensitive issue. If done in an offensive way, it can lead to alienation of whatever half-hearted cooperation exists between the Pakistani military and the U.S.
However, if the U.S. can find a way to engage the Pakistani military to assume responsibility for the situation, the threat can be contained in its entirety.
Evading the role of Pakistan, however, can only prevent a safe exit strategy.
* Tufail Ahmad is Director of MEMRI's Urdu-Pashtu Media Project; Yigal Carmon is President of MEMRI.
=======================
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.
Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. MEMRI's headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in London, Rome, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Shanghai and Tokyo. MEMRI research is translated to English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew.
Last Updated on Sunday, 06 December 2009 07:44
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200912067629/global-terrorism/the-new-us-policy-in-afghanistan-evading-the-root-problem.html
Written by Tufail Ahmad and Y. Carmon
Sunday, 06 December 2009 07:26
Memri.org
Introduction
In a speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point on December 1, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke about the future of the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan. He announced his decision to increase U.S. military forces there by 30,000 troops, and asserted that "our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan."
Obama further stressed that "the Pakistani Army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan, and there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.... We are committed to partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual respect and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan's capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries."
While the reinforcement of the U.S. military force in Afghanistan can help in the fight against the Taliban, the president's statements regarding Pakistan seem to evade the root cause of the Pakistan-Afghanistan crisis - namely, Pakistan's role over the past three decades in the region in general and in Afghanistan in particular. Hence, the new U.S. policy may prove to be ineffective. The following analysis will review the main factors in the Pakistan-Afghanistan crisis and will address the question of U.S. policies and their impact.
The Root Causes of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Crisis and their Long-Term Implications
The current situation in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region has been largely shaped by the Pakistani army's support of militant organizations over the past three decades. This ongoing support is rooted in the Pakistani identity and in Pakistan's perception of its role as an Islamic state ever since its creation in 1947.
For more than half of its 62 years, Pakistan was ruled by military officers. But even when it was ruled by civilians, in the debate over Pakistan's identity, secularists and liberal forces have always lost, while the military and the religious groups have always set the nation's agenda and defined its future course.[1] The way the Pakistani leaders view their identity defines their domestic policies and foreign relations. The shaping of the Pakistani identity on the Islamic path has over the years turned Pakistan into an expansionist state, which has translated into the military's policy of "strategic depth." In practical terms, this policy meant a constant concerted effort by the military-led Pakistani establishment to go beyond its borders into India (not only in Kashmir but also the mainland India) and in Afghanistan through the use of militant groups.
This self-perception of Pakistan's role, responsibility and identity is a genie that has been out of the bottle for decades now, and there is no way to get it back in. It has become the most decisive factor in the region's history and politics - so much so that when Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf tried after September 11 to reverse, though reluctantly, the policy of using the militant organizations as "strategic assets," he was not able to do so. In fact, this genie is so strong now that a number of young militant leaders who have emerged in recent years and are more ideologically driven are now beginning to launch attacks on the Pakistani security institutions, particularly since the military began cooperating with the U.S.
After the February 2008 election and the rise of the Zardari-Gilani administration, things only deteriorated further. The Pakistani military continued to dictate the terms of Pakistan's foreign policy, notably when the civilian government was almost face-to-face with a military coup on the issue of the Kerry-Lugar aid legislation passed by the U.S. Congress.[2] If President General Musharraf, who came from the ranks of the military establishment and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), could not reverse the years-long strategy and could not control the militants, the civilian government stands no chance of doing so.
The U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan, which has led to growing pressure on the Pakistani military to reverse the decades-long Pakistani strategy, cannot succeed in achieving its goals either in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Pakistani military is bound to pursue a policy which broadly runs between a) playing a double game with the militant groups by on the one hand attacking them, on the other hand providing them with early warnings and escape routes during various security operations, and b) coddling the militant groups as it does with the favored militant commanders and the Sunni jihadist organizations in the Punjab province, whom the military refrains from attacking.[3]
The Pakistani Military's Role and Responsibility
The current Afghan crisis was caused by the military-led Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which is the final arbiter of power in Pakistan. In mid-1990s, the ISI organized and used the Taliban to remove the warring Afghan mujahideen and warlords from Kabul, and to serve as Pakistan's long arm in Afghanistan. However, after 9/11, the U.S. dislodged the Taliban from Afghanistan, throwing the Pakistani military's Afghan strategy of using the militants in Afghanistan into disarray. The Taliban, and with them Al-Qaeda, retreated to their homebase in Pakistan.
Between 2002 and 2004, there was relative peace in Afghanistan because the Pakistani military did not dare to confront America after its invasion of Afghanistan following September 11. However, in 2005 the ISI finally resumed its policy of strategic depth. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants began moving back into Afghanistan via the Pakistani tribal region. As a result, U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan increased rapidly. U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan were just 12 in 2001. Between 2002 and 2004, the average number of American deaths per year was about 50, but this figure doubled to 99 in 2005, 98 in 2006, and 117 in 2007, tripling to 155 in 2008, and jumping to 298 in 2009 (as of November 30).[4]
To this day, it is the Pakistani military which is the key supporter of the militants in Afghanistan. The militants continue to travel freely across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The key militant groups in Afghanistan, i.e. the Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda, Hizb-e-Islami and the Afghan Taliban, have formed a strong working relationship, with the direction of the militants' strategy in Afghanistan being controlled by the Quetta Taliban Shura, which is the executive council led by Mullah Omar. That body is protected by the ISI, Pakistani intelligence.[5]
Some ISI-backed militant groups are also responsible for attacks in India and Bangladesh. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Muhammad are behind the attacks not only in Indian Kashmir, but also are involved in a series of militant attacks in the mainland India, notably the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. With the support of the ISI, these militant organizations have created the Indian Mujahideen by roping in disaffected Indian Muslim youth. Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami, which has its headquarters in Pakistan, are establishing strong bases in Bangladesh in order to achieve the twin goals of controlling Bangladesh and vandalizing India.
An overall assessment of the battle in Afghanistan on the one hand, and the U.S. drone attacks and the Pakistani army's show of force against the militant groups on the other hand, reveals that the militants are definitely not losing ground. In fact, in Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban, the Hizb-e-Islami militants, and Al-Qaeda are present in all provinces. Moreover, in Pakistan, the Sunni militant organizations based in the Punjab province are not touched by the military. Instead, they are not only growing in number and strength, but are now beginning to hatch international terror plots.[6]
Oft-Discussed Options - Can They Work?
Sending More Troops to Afghanistan to Defeat the Taliban
Even if President Obama had authorized sending of the 40,000 U.S. troops requested by the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, and even if they were to succeed in defeating the Taliban, the victory would be short-lived, because the Taliban would retreat again to their homes in Pakistan as they did before and after the United States invaded Afghanistan following 9/11. They would then resume their infiltration into Afghanistan, as before in 2005-06.
Buying the Taliban Out and/or Including Them in the Political Process
These are not valid options. The Taliban are ideologically driven. Even if they agree to take money and join the political process, they will work to replace the present democratic structure with an Islamic state. Indeed, Saudi efforts to mediate secret Taliban-U.S. talks have borne no fruit.
Even some leaders of the Afghan jihad of the 1980s who joined the political process and became members of the Afghan parliament, such as Burhanuddin Rabbani, have proven unable to serve as a bridge to the Taliban.[7] Gulbadin Hekmatyar, another mujahideen commander of the 1980s, has rejected any talks as long as any foreign troops are present in Afghanistan.[8]
Fighting Only Al-Qaeda
This too is not a valid option. Al-Qaeda is well established in Afghanistan, and collaborates with the Pakistan-based Taliban Shura.[9] There is no practical way to conduct an isolated fight against Al-Qaeda alone. Indeed, a close examination of the Sunni militant organizations based in the Pakistani province of Punjab - e.g. Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi - indicates close interrelationships among them. It also emerges that these organizations have been interacting with the top Al-Qaeda leadership for more than a decade now.
In fact, Al-Qaeda may be a secondary player now, while the Taliban and the Punjab-based groups are working in tandem with each other, and forming the backbone of Al-Qaeda.
A Withdrawal of U.S. Troops from the Conflict Zone
Such a move would significantly strengthen the militant groups and, as a result, enhance the Pakistani military's urge to use them to spread Pakistani control beyond Pakistan's borders.
This in turn will enhance the threat to the whole of South Asia, particularly to India. Given the nuclear arsenals that Pakistan and India have, such a development could endanger the United States itself.
Conclusions
The U.S. is locked in a conflict it cannot win. But it has to keep fighting it to prevent further deterioration of the crisis, which would endanger the whole region and America itself.
President Obama's strategy to build on partnership with Pakistan based on "mutual trust" defies the history and hard reality of the Pakistan-Afghanistan crisis.
Addressing the Pakistani role is indeed a sensitive issue. If done in an offensive way, it can lead to alienation of whatever half-hearted cooperation exists between the Pakistani military and the U.S.
However, if the U.S. can find a way to engage the Pakistani military to assume responsibility for the situation, the threat can be contained in its entirety.
Evading the role of Pakistan, however, can only prevent a safe exit strategy.
* Tufail Ahmad is Director of MEMRI's Urdu-Pashtu Media Project; Yigal Carmon is President of MEMRI.
=======================
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.
Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. MEMRI's headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in London, Rome, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Shanghai and Tokyo. MEMRI research is translated to English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew.
Last Updated on Sunday, 06 December 2009 07:44
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200912067629/global-terrorism/the-new-us-policy-in-afghanistan-evading-the-root-problem.html
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Act or US will intervene: Obama's warning to Pakistan
Act or US will intervene: Obama's warning to Pakistan
Category » News Flash Posted On Monday, November 30, 2009
Agencies
Washington, Nov 30:In a stern message to Pakistan, the United States has asked it to shed its policy of "using insurgents" like LeT as a strategic tool and warned that if it cannot deliver against terrorists, the US may be impelled to use "any means" at its disposal.The message, which has been conveyed in a letter from US President Barack Obama to his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, also includes an offer by him to try to "reduce tensions" between India and Pakistan, media reported here.The two-page letter, hand-delivered by National Security Adviser General (retd) James Jones when he visited Islamabad early this month, offers Pakistan enhancement of strategic partnership if they act as wished by the US, besides additional military and economic aid.In his letter, Obama has also warned Pakistan that its use of insurgent groups for policy goals "cannot continue" and called for closer collaboration against all extremist groups.He named five such groups - al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Tehrik-e-Taliban."Using vague diplomatic language, he said that ambiguity in Pakistan's relationship with any of them could no longer be ignored," the Washington Post reported. Jones did some straight-talking with the top Pakistani leadership, the daily said. "If Pakistan cannot deliver, he warned, the US may be impelled to use any means at its disposal to rout insurgents based along Pakistan's western and southern borders with Afghanistan."The Post said US officials have long referred to Pakistani military and intelligence officers who are sympathetic to or actively support insurgent groups fighting in Afghanistan as "rogue elements".More recently, they have described those relationships as more direct and institutional within a divided military."For the things that we care about," a US official was quoted as saying, "the real decision-maker is the military."It has long been hedging its bets in Afghanistan; the military has positioned itself to prevent inroads by India in the event of a US withdrawal, and against a 30-year history of being used and then rejected by shifting US policy aims," it said.
http://www.centralchronicle.com/viewnews.asp?articleID=20641
Category » News Flash Posted On Monday, November 30, 2009
Agencies
Washington, Nov 30:In a stern message to Pakistan, the United States has asked it to shed its policy of "using insurgents" like LeT as a strategic tool and warned that if it cannot deliver against terrorists, the US may be impelled to use "any means" at its disposal.The message, which has been conveyed in a letter from US President Barack Obama to his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, also includes an offer by him to try to "reduce tensions" between India and Pakistan, media reported here.The two-page letter, hand-delivered by National Security Adviser General (retd) James Jones when he visited Islamabad early this month, offers Pakistan enhancement of strategic partnership if they act as wished by the US, besides additional military and economic aid.In his letter, Obama has also warned Pakistan that its use of insurgent groups for policy goals "cannot continue" and called for closer collaboration against all extremist groups.He named five such groups - al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Tehrik-e-Taliban."Using vague diplomatic language, he said that ambiguity in Pakistan's relationship with any of them could no longer be ignored," the Washington Post reported. Jones did some straight-talking with the top Pakistani leadership, the daily said. "If Pakistan cannot deliver, he warned, the US may be impelled to use any means at its disposal to rout insurgents based along Pakistan's western and southern borders with Afghanistan."The Post said US officials have long referred to Pakistani military and intelligence officers who are sympathetic to or actively support insurgent groups fighting in Afghanistan as "rogue elements".More recently, they have described those relationships as more direct and institutional within a divided military."For the things that we care about," a US official was quoted as saying, "the real decision-maker is the military."It has long been hedging its bets in Afghanistan; the military has positioned itself to prevent inroads by India in the event of a US withdrawal, and against a 30-year history of being used and then rejected by shifting US policy aims," it said.
http://www.centralchronicle.com/viewnews.asp?articleID=20641
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