Title: U.S. Urges Pakistan Toward New Attacks
Author: Thomas E. Ricks and Kamran Khan
Publication: Washington Post
Date: May 12, 2002
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6008-2002May11.html

U.S. Urges Pakistan Toward New Attacks
Ally Balks at Pursuit of Al Qaeda, Officials Say

U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that the major remaining concentrations of al Qaeda fighters are in western Pakistan, rather than in Afghanistan, but Pakistan has resisted U.S. pressure to launch large-scale attacks against them, officials in Washington and Pakistan said.

U.S. officials have pressed Pakistan to act against what they believe are groups of al Qaeda fighters concentrated in the Waziristan area of western Pakistan, near the Afghan border.

"We know where there is a large concentration of al Qaeda," one Pentagon official said last week, noting that there were several hundred in one border town, which he asked not be identified. But, he added, "Our guys haven't been getting the cooperation" requested from the Pakistani government.

The Pakistani government's reluctance to go after the pockets of terrorists on its territory is the first major difference to surface in the U.S.-Pakistani alliance against terrorism, which has been surprisingly strong since September.

If the intense U.S. pressure to mount an offensive along the Pakistani side of the border succeeds, it would mark a major widening of the eight-month-old U.S. counteroffensive against terrorism, in which overt combat has taken place only in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials also said it is possible the United States could decide to act unilaterally against the terrorist pockets.

Defense officials said the Pakistani military has been moving very slowly, despite U.S. offers to provide intelligence, helicopters, Special Operations troops or even conventional military units. For the last two weeks, one senior official said, "We've been after them [the Pakistanis] to attack, and we haven't made much progress."

Another added: "We are trying to encourage, wheedle, coerce, urge the Pakistanis to move more aggressively" against al Qaeda fighters. "We've had some success, but movement is slow."

Pakistani officials responded that, with or without U.S. aid, they are reluctant for several reasons to launch the attacks. They said they fear an internal political backlash, both in the unruly border area and from Islamic extremists across the nation. They said their military already is strained by the standoff with India.

In addition, they said they lack confidence in U.S. intelligence reports about the supposed buildup of al Qaeda forces on their territory. "There can't be any such large-scale concentrations in any area of Pakistan," Pakistani Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, director of the Interior Ministry's crisis management cell, said Friday. "It isn't possible."

Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, met with his top military commanders last week in Rawalpindi to consider how to deal with the U.S. push to begin wide-ranging military operations in the semi-autonomous border area. The meeting has been reported in the Pakistani press, but not its subject or conclusions.

But speaking privately, Pakistani officials disclosed the military leaders concluded that no operation would be launched in the volatile border region -- known as the Tribal Areas -- without more specific intelligence that the Pakistani government deemed credible. Even then, they decided, U.S. military involvement in the area should be kept to a minimum.

A small number of U.S. Special Forces are already operating along the Pakistani side of the border, and covert U.S. patrols have crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan. On Friday night, a rocket was fired at a building in North Waziristan in which U.S. personnel are believed to be staying. It was the second rocket attack this month against U.S. forces in the area. No casualties were reported in either assault.

The commanders' meeting also concluded that the United States should be told that until tensions relax between Pakistan and India -- about 80 percent of Pakistan's troops are deployed on its eastern border, with India -- the Pakistani military could not mount large-scale operations along its western border, with Afghanistan.

"There was almost a consensus during this meeting that extreme care be taken before launching any security operation in the tribal areas, and in the event of any such action, the involvement of foreign personnel be kept at the minimum level," said an official familiar with the conference proceedings.

A Pakistani security official also discounted the U.S. conclusion that several hundred al Qaeda fighters have concentrated in two or three areas near the border. The U.S. intelligence, he said, is "very general and lacks specifics."

He added that recent small-scale raids launched jointly by the United States and Pakistan in the Tribal Areas already have created a "revolt-like situation" there.

"The territory is hostile to the U.S. forces and sympathetic to Taliban and Arabs," a Pakistani military official agreed. He indicated that the United States should reconsider before pushing Pakistan "to launch a military assault against thousands of well-armed, religiously motivated people."

The frustration U.S. officials have expressed about Pakistan is especially striking because it comes after eight months in which the United States -- especially its military -- has been consistently pleased with the breadth and depth of Pakistani cooperation.

Even though the Pakistani government, and especially its intelligence service, had nurtured Afghanistan's Taliban movement, Pakistan agreed in September to support the U.S. attack on the Taliban. It permitted U.S. warplanes to fly over its territory and even allowed the Americans to base troops and aircraft at at least four locations on its territory. It also helped capture Taliban and al Qaeda fighters: Close to half the detainees held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were originally in Pakistani custody.

The first hint of a change in the extent of Pakistan's cooperation came after its military failed to catch scores of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters fleeing the Shahikot battle in March. The United States and its allies then staged the biggest ground attack of the war, against a large, heavily armed and dug-in opponent.

That failure was in sharp contrast to the Tora Bora fight in December, when swift action by the Pakistani army netted hundreds of suspected al Qaeda fighters as they crossed into Pakistan.

Since Shahikot, results of the U.S.-led offensive on the Afghan side of the border have been sparse. Earlier this month, the U.S. military prepared to launch a major operation in southeastern Afghanistan. Preliminary movements by British and Canadian forces were intended to force enemy concentrations to fight or to move.

The Pakistani military was supposed to complement the attack by pushing al Qaeda members back across the border into Afghanistan. Troops from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne went on alert to reinforce any allied unit that became engaged in combat.

To the U.S. commanders' surprise, the sweeps by British and Canadian forces ran into almost no opposition. The Americans have concluded that most of the al Qaeda opposition has relocated in small villages along the Pakistani side of the border.

"Given the choice of facing U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, or nothing in the ungovernable provinces, where would you go?" asked one U.S. official involved in the war.

Despite its resistance, the Pakistani government has indicated it understands that the United States ultimately may choose to bomb the pockets of enemy fighters unilaterally, especially if solid intelligence points toward the location of Osama bin Laden or other al Qaeda leaders.

"We've made it very clear" to tribal leaders that providing sanctuary to terrorists and their allies "would bring great harm to them," Moeenuddin Haider, Pakistan's interior minister, told Washington Post reporters and editors on Friday -- although he said he was not aware either of large groups of al Qaeda in Pakistan or of U.S. pressure to do more against them. He also said he does not believe bin Laden is in Pakistan.

Tribal leaders in Waziristan said they have been warned in far harsher terms. One said that last week, after local youths posted armed bands outside schools and mosques to resist searches by U.S. forces, Pakistani military intelligence officials told them that giving refuge to al Qaeda invited "carpet bombing of the area by the U.S. B-52 bombers."

Special correspondent Khan reported from Karachi, Pakistan.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company