On July 9, U.S. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, said that American and Afghan forces deployed along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier had come under increasing mortar and rocket attacks from neighboring Pakistan. The general presumed this was because they thought their being on Pakistani territory gave them some kind of sanctuary. However, McKiernan argued they were mistaken because “we do return those fires.”

McKiernan and other American commanders have justified their counterfire on the grounds of self-defense. By this, they appear to mean both tactical (disrupting the immediate attack) and operational (impeding the cross-border movement of the insurgents and their supplies).

Nevertheless, American commanders maintain that the Pakistani authorities are also responsible for the increased cross-border exchanges because the Islamabad government has negotiated a series of peace deals with local tribal leaders and with various extremist groups that have effectively granted the militants free license to operate across the Afghan-Pakistan border.

During a recent trip to Washington, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani maintained that his government was only negotiating with the Pakistani Taliban, not their Afghan counterparts or international terrorist groups using Pakistani territory as a safe haven. He insisted that Pakistani forces would forcefully repress any group that continued to engage in terrorism or foreign military operations. Even so, U.S. ground commanders note that, in May and June, after these ceasefire agreements had taken effect, the number of American combat deaths in Afghanistan exceeded those in Iraq, despite the fact that five times as many U.S. troops are in Iraq than Afghanistan.

Some Americans cite the concept of “hot pursuit” to justify attacking Taliban guerrillas who have fled across the border into Pakistan to escape coalition attacks. In August 2007, a memo became public revealing that U.S. Special Forces could operate up to 10 kilometers inside Pakistan to support soldiers under attack or conduct raids against al-Qaeda leaders. Certain American commanders have apparently expanded the concept to justify either preemptive or preventive strikes designed to disrupt an attack before it could occur, which would expand the notion of “hot pursuit” considerably.

American intelligence managers also support direct U.S. counteractions in northwest Pakistan because of growing evidence that al-Qaeda is re-establishing its main base of operations there. Earlier this year, several U.S. military commanders concurred with U.S. intelligence assessments that any future 9/11-style attack from al-Qaeda would probably originate from the group’s new safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal regions. The location has the advantage of being remote, largely under the control of sympathetic tribal leaders, and nominally under the sovereign jurisdiction of a government allied with Washington.

For the Taliban, the tribal areas provide a sanctuary where they can recruit train and supply their fighters. Coalition troops cannot cut the insurgents’ supply lines to Afghanistan without direct attacks into Pakistani territory. Conversely, the Taliban can use its bases in northwest Pakistan to disrupt the coalition supply line that traverses Pakistani territory. Afghanistan is landlocked and 40 percent of NATO supplies travel from Karachi to Kandahar via the Khyber Pass.

NATO military leaders have sought to work directly with their Afghan and Pakistani counterparts to enhance border security. However, the trilateral meetings dedicated to this mission have not occurred for several months, leaving U.S. commanders to rely on unilateral direct attacks against threats on either side of the border.

The United States has trained and partly financed Pakistan’s Frontier Corps in an attempt to provide the region with dedicated border troops. Yet, morale was reportedly low among its 75,000 troops even before an errant June 2008 U.S. air strike apparently killed eleven of its members. Ethnic divisions between the troops, mostly Pashtuns like the Taliban, and the officers, often Urdu members of the regular army, have led to doubt about the force’s reliability. A recent report by the RAND Corporation concluded that members of the Frontier Corps provide intelligence and other support to Islamist militants to help them evade arrest.

American intelligence agencies maintain a direct liaison relationship with the Pakistani government. The United States deploys approximately 50 Special Forces in Pakistan. Those forces have a limited autonomy and their role is largely limited to supporting Pakistani operations.

American intelligence operatives are also stationed at the trilateral “coordination centers” in which Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. intelligence officers are co-located to facilitate the exchange of information about border and other threats. But the recent recriminations between Afghan and Pakistani intelligence about the latter’s alleged complicity in assassination attempts against Afghan President Hamid Karzai have presumably undermined these exchanges.

The CIA has long been rumored to use remotely piloted drones to launch direct attacks on high-value al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership targets in northwest Pakistan. Last week, al-Qaeda poisons expert Midhat Mursi, also known as Abu Khabab, was killed by a presumed CIA Predator UAV armed with Hellfire missiles.

Such air strikes have drawbacks. They often lead to highly visible civilian casualties. In particular, by killing the target, they do not yield as much further intelligence as would live-capture operations, which U.S. leaders still refuse to authorize given Pakistani sensitivities.

source: world politics review