Pakistan and U.S. - still best of friends?
Posted: Friday, January 19, 2007 10:27 AM
Filed Under:
Islamabad, Pakistan
By Asif Farooqi and Mushtaq Yusufzai, NBC News Pakistan producers
Pakistan and the United States have been shoulder to shoulder in fighting al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the rugged mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the U.S. declared its war on terror in 2001. But five years down the road there seems to be some strains in the relationship between the allies.
Two strikes within a week on suspected al-Qaida targets by the U.S. forces inside Pakistani territory followed accusations by U.S. military and intelligence officials that Pakistan wasn’t doing enough to root out terrorism within its borders.
'Hot pursuit'
Under an agreement known as "hot pursuit," the government of Pakistan has given tacit approval to U.S. forces based in Afghanistan to chase down and attack al-Qaida and Taliban targets wherever they are spotted, even inside Pakistani territory. Sources close to the Pakistani military tell NBC News this agreement is deeply unpopular within the military ranks.
Pakistani military spokesman Gen Shaukat Sultan said it was Pakistan army gunship helicopters that carried out the attacks on three suspected training camps in a desolate area of south Waziristan on Tuesday. He said the same thing the previous week when missiles were fired on an alleged Taliban supply convoy as it tried to cross the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
But sources tell NBC News that, in both the cases, the Pakistani military never took part in the actual operation. U.S. drones fired precision-guided bombs to destroy their targets. The Pakistanis arrived later for mop-up operations.
Eyewitnesses from nearby villages in south Waziristan said they saw drones circling overhead before Tuesday’s attack and said Pakistani gunship helicopters reached the area 20-30 minutes after the bombing.
"The Pakistani helicopters circled over the destroyed compound for a while and left without landing or firing," an eyewitness said in a telephone interview.
Not sharing all info
Sources within the Pakistan military say the army is given advance notice of a U.S. strike, but with a limited margin of time.
U.S. officials have long said that they share 90 percent of their information with Pakistanis. But senior U.S. officials say they have been disturbed by the Pakistani government's willingness to make deals with local tribal leaders, deals that limit Pakistani military operations in the area.
In fact, the United States has seen evidence of groups of militants, including foreign fighters, gathering in the tribal areas for training. While the United States does not like the idea that the fighters think they have found safe harbor in those areas, they also note it can provide U.S. and Pakistani military units with a new set of targets.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan believe that Pakistani forces manning the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan often turn a blind eye to the cross-border traffic of Taliban fighters.
Trust issue
A Pakistani intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News that the Americans should have more trust in their Pakistani allies and there is a need for better communication and coordination especially when it comes to military operations on Pakistani soil.
After all, the official said, these two recent military operations conducted over a period of four days had a huge impact on the local communities in the tribal areas and across the country.
And while there may be some doubt about who carried out the attacks in the border regions, they were certainly carried out with U.S. weaponry.
These attacks can fuel the heated rhetoric stirred up by the very powerful Islamic political parties in Pakistan against the United States and U.S. policies in this region as well as in Iraq. The outcome is that an ever-increasing number of Pakistanis appear to be losing trust in the United States as a friend of Pakistan.
Robert Windrem, NBC News' Senior Investigative Producer, contributed to this report.
