Raids strain fragile US-Pak ties

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s already-frayed relationship with the US seems to have reached a turning point with international media reports confirming that the ongoing military raids in the country’s tribal belt had been approved by US president George W Bush. Bush has reportedly authorised ground assaults by US forces inside Pakistani territory — a move that is likely to be opposed by the Pakistan army.

While diplomatic circles in Islamabad describe the raids by the Afghanistan-based US forces as a wake-up call for the political and military leadership of Pakistan to get serious about the Taliban insurgency, army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has reportedly ordered his troops to retaliate against any action by foreign troops inside its territory.

According to Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas, during their-two-day Corps Commanders’ conference which ended on Thursday, the military commanders resolved to defend Pakistan’s borders without allowing any external forces to conduct operations inside Pakistan. In a subsequent statement, the army chief said the rules of engagement among the allied forces were well defined and military operations against the militants in a given area were the responsibility of the armed forces of that country. 

The statement is significant because it comes in the wake of his mid-sea meeting with US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen on an aircraft carrier where the two reportedly reached an understanding on some of the irritants that characterise their relationship. On the other hand, Mullen told a congressional hearing that his country would adopt a new, more comprehensive strategy that would cover areas on both sides of the border.

On his part, prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani termed General Kayani’s response to the Americans as a true reflection of the Pakistan People’s Party government’s policy.

“The military commanders had discussed implications of the US attacks inside Pakistan and took stock of the public feeling. I believe the COAS (chief of army staff Ashfaq Kayani) has represented the feeling of the entire nation, as random attacks inside Pakistan have angered each and every Pakistani,” the prime minister added.

According to senior foreign office officials in Islamabad, if launching raids inside the Pakistani territory was the new strategy of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, it would definitely add to the political troubles of the newly-elected government in the coming days and months.

With militancy on the rise and American patience running out, analysts feel, Pakistan faces a complex security situation in the region — and one that can have adverse spill-over effects for other areas of the country as well as Afghanistan. Given the prevailing dynamics, they say the US military raids would only multiply violence on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border even as any effort to hammer out a negotiated peace agreement with the extremists offers no relief.

On Wednesday, the New York Times had reported that analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency and other American spy agencies believed that General Kayani had knowledge of the proposed bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul in July.