As Taliban activities rise to a disturbing level in Afghanistan, the relations between two close allies in the war on terror — the US and Pakistan — seem to be souring.
Hours after Wednesday’s statement by the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, that Washington was planning military operations to eliminate militant sanctuaries in Pakistan, Pakistan’s army chief vowed to defend sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country “at all cost.”
The top US military official told Congress’ Armed Services Committee that the armed forces were not winning the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and a “new, comprehensive strategy” involving Pakistan’s tribal belt from where the rebels launch cross-border attacks on coalition forces was needed.
Apparently the revised policy has already been put to work.
A report in the New York Times yesterday said US President George W. Bush had in July secretly approved orders for ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior consent of Islamabad.
“The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable,” a senior US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the newspaper. “We have to be more assertive. Orders have been issued.”
This allowed US special forces, backed by helicopter gunships, to raid a border village in the tribal district of South Waziristan, killing more than 20 people, mostly civilians, Pakistani officials said.
It evoked anger in Pakistan where demands are mounting to end the cooperation with the US against terrorism.
“Such reckless actions only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area,” Pakistani military chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said. “No external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan.”
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would not comment directly on Kayani’s remarks. But he said the US military was working closely with the Pakistanis in regard to the border region.
“We have a shared common interest with respect to terrorism and terrorist activities,” Whitman said. “Pakistan recognizes the challenges that they have, and the United States is committed to helping allies counter terrorism.”
But Kayani said such operations were covered by no agreement between Pakistan and US-led forces in Afghanistan and risked stoking militancy in a region which Washington regards as an intolerably safe haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
“Falling for short-term gains while ignoring our long-term interest is not the right way forward,” Kayani said in a statement released through the military’s media wing.
The Pakistani government already hauled in the US ambassador to Islamabad to lodge a stiff protest over a highly unusual raid by helicopter-borne grounds troops that residents said killed about 15 people.
US officials have acknowledged that US troops carried out the operation, but have provided no details. The objective and results of the mission remain unclear.
Along with a barrage of suspected US missile strikes into Pakistan’s border zone, the raid indicates that Washington is getting more aggressive against militant targets beyond Afghanistan’s frontier, despite the political fallout in Pakistan, a key US ally.
A US missile strike on Monday in the North Waziristan tribal region destroyed a seminary and houses associated with a veteran Taliban commander and killed 20 people, including some women and children as well as four foreign militants, officials said.
The tribal belt is considered a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
Three Pakistani intelligence officials identified the foreign militants as Abu Qasim, Abu Musa, Abu Hamza and Abu Haris. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of their jobs’ sensitivity.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS