Pakistan to US: Are You With Us Or Against Us?

PKKH Editorial

The tide has shifted dramatically in recent years. Resurgent Afghan Taliban, better armed, trained, and deadly effective, now have control over 80% of Afghan territory. There has been a significant increase in offensive targetting of US and NATO bases and Afghan government officials and buildings in the last couple of years, with even Kabul coming under increasing pressure.

On the other side of the border, the CIA and Indian supported TTP has been getting a hiding at the hands of Pakistan’s armed forces with even the US and NATO stunned at the efficiency and success of the army operations against TTP militants in Swat and South Waziristan. For the first time in 8 years, Pakistan now has the upper hand and has started to dictate terms to the US, starting last week with the rejection of US request to extend the operation to North Waziristan where Jalaluddin Haqqani’s faction allegedly operates from. Anticipating an imminent turnaround in Pakistan’s Afghan policy and fearing the US supply lines into Afghanistan may come under pressure, the US immediately sought to pacify the Pakistan Armed Forces with promises to deliver 12 ‘unarmed’ shadow drones – which hasn’t worked.

The White House and Pentagon are in shock, as this turnaround by the Pakistan Army couldn’t have come at a worse time for them – with the recent attacks on CIA’s Chapman outpost in Khost, a failed civilian government incharge, an incompetent Afghan army, and with 30,000 US troops on their way to what many now realise is a lost cause.

And now the New York Times reveals an interesting conversation between Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and an unnamed senior Pakistan Army official that took place last week. The biggest sign yet of the reversal of fortunes comes with a simple but symbolic ‘Are you with us or against us?’ from the Pakistan Army to the United States. The NYT article follows:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Nobody else in the Obama administration has been mired in Pakistan for as long as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. So on a trip here this past week to try to soothe the country’s growing rancor toward the United States, he served as a punching bag tested over a quarter-century.

“Are you with us or against us?” a senior military officer demanded of Mr. Gates at Pakistan’s National Defense University, according to a Pentagon official who recounted the remark made during a closed-door session after Mr. Gates gave a speech at the school on Friday. Mr. Gates, who could hardly miss that the officer was mimicking former President George W. Bush’s warning to nations harboring militants, simply replied, “Of course we’re with you.”

Maoist Rebels Widen Deadly Reach Across India

Jim Yardley

BARSUR, India — At the edge of the Indravati River, hundreds of miles from the nearest international border, India effectively ends. Indian paramilitary officers point machine guns across the water. The dense jungles and mountains on the other side belong to Maoist rebels dedicated to overthrowing the government.  Indigenous women walked to a market in Chattisgarh State, where villagers are caught between the Indian government and Maoist rebels.

“That is their liberated zone,” said P. Bhojak, one of the officers stationed at the river’s edge in this town in the eastern state of Chattisgarh. Or one piece of it. India’s Maoist rebels are now present in 20 states and have evolved into a potent and lethal insurgency. In the last four years, the Maoists have killed more than 900 Indian security officers, a figure almost as high as the more than 1,100 members of the coalition forces killed in Afghanistan during the same period.  If the Maoists were once dismissed as a ragtag band of outdated ideologues, Indian leaders are now preparing to deploy nearly 70,000 paramilitary officers for a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign to hunt down the guerrillas in some of the country’s most rugged, isolated terrain.

Pakistanis Continue to Reject U.S. Partnership

New York Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Even with the arrival of the Obama administration and the prospect of substantially increased aid, more Pakistanis — an overwhelming majority — continued to reject the United States as a partner to fight militancy in their country, a new poll finds.

The survey, conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute, underscored the difficulties the Obama administration faced in its efforts to tamp down Islamic militancy in this strategically vital nation.

Baitullah Mehsud: Eliminated

Dan Qayyum | PakistanKaKhudaHafiz.com

Pakistani Terrorist chief Baitullah Mehsud, who led a violent campaign of suicide attacks and assassinations against the Pakistani government, has been killed in a US missile strike, a TTP commander and aide to Mehsud said Friday.

‘I confirm that Baitullah Mehsud and his wife died in the American missile attack in South Waziristan,’ Kafayatullah told The Associated Press by telephone. He would not give any further details. [Source]

In February this year, PKKH had reported on how Baitullah Mehsud had outlived his shelf-life, and was of no further use to his American masters. With the TTP defeated in Malakand, he had been cornered in his hometown in South Waziristan and it would only have been a matter of days before he was captured.

This is what we reported earlier this year:

It now increasingly looks like Baitullah Mehsud is living on borrowed time. It would be interesting to see who gets to him first, the Pakistanis or the Americans. Pakistan Army would be well advised to attempt to capture him alive, something that the Americans and Indians would try and ensure does not happen.

US Planned to Buy Bombed Peshawar Hotel

As a colleague here at The Times points out, the Pearl Continental hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan, which was partly destroyed on Tuesday by a massive car bomb, is well known locally as a meeting point for not just wealthy Pakistanis, foreign aid workers and journalists but also intelligence agents. In other words, it is the sort of place a modern-day Graham Greene novel might be set, with security so tight that even the lifeguards at the hotel pool are armed with AK-47s.

Munir Akram Debunks Washington

Militants Not ‘Existential Threat’

Pakistan’s former permanent envoy, who was removed by the Zardari government because of his strong nationalist credentials, says the solution has to be Pakistani, not American. He told the New York Times in response to an editorial that three-fourths of Indian military strength is deployed against Pakistan, so there is no question of removing troops from Indian borders.

NEW YORK, May 2 (APP): A former top Pakistani diplomat has said that the rising insurgency in Pakistan could only be reversed through a nationally endorsed strategy, not one “made in America.”

“The surge of militancy threatens Pakistan’s progressive aspirations, but it is not an existential threat,” Munir Akram, who served as Pakistan’s U.N. ambassador from 2002 to 2008, said in a letter published in “The New York Times” Saturday.

Akram was responding to an editorial earlier this week in which the leading American newspaper expressed concern over what it called was a lack of an adequate response to the Taliban advancing towards Islamabad.

“The onus for action against the insurgency cannot continue to be put on the Army, the former envoy said.

”Pakistan is now ruled by a civilian democratic government. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has declared that the army will carry out the government’s policies. The Swat deal, whatever its flaws, was negotiated by the elected Frontier provincial government and endorsed by the Pakistani Parliament”.

In conclusion, Akram said, “United States aerial strikes, dictation and coercion only strengthen support for the militants in the Frontier and reinforce the common perception that Pakistan is being forced to fight “America’s war.”

Pakistani concerns are further aroused by American demands that Pakistan move troops away from its eastern border even while India continues to deploy three‑fourths of its vast forces against Pakistan”.

Baitullah Mehsud’s Time Is Up

Dan Qayyum | PakistanKaKhudaHafiz.com

It seems Baitullah Mehsud has outlived his shelf-life and is of no further use to his American and Indian masters.

After receiving a kicking in Bajaur and the implementation of Sharia in Swat, he has now been cornered into South Waziristan with his area of influence having been greatly reduced in recent days. In what seemed like a sign of desperation, he hit out at Kashmiri jihadi groups last week, threatening to eliminate their leaders if they did not join him in fighting the Pakistan army.

Accusing them of ‘only fighting external enemies such as the US and India’, Baitullah Mehsud’s ‘Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’ (TTP) justified attacking members of these Jihadi outfits by pointing out that these outfits ‘do not fight the Pakistan Army’ and commit mass murder of innocent Pakistani citizens like the TTP has been doing for a some time now.

It is also interesting to note that the Afghan Taleban’s Supreme Commander Mullah Mohammad Omar had issued a statement over a year ago distancing himself and the Afghan Taleban from the TTP and its chief Baitullah Mehsud. He had also condemned Baitullah Mehsud in strong words for fighting against the Pakistan Army instead of with the NATO forces.

This recent report in NYT makes interesting reading.

It is unclear why the Obama administration decided to carry out the attacks, which American and Pakistani officials said occurred last Saturday and again on Monday, hitting camps run by Mr. Mehsud’s network. The Saturday strike was aimed specifically at Mr. Mehsud, but he was not killed, according to Pakistani and American officials.

For months, Pakistani military and intelligence officials have complained about Washington’s refusal to strike at Baitullah Mehsud, even while C.I.A. drones struck at Qaeda figures and leaders of the network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a militant leader believed responsible for a campaign of violence against American troops in Afghanistan.

According to one senior Pakistani official, Pakistan’s intelligence service on two occasions in recent months gave the United States detailed intelligence about Mr. Mehsud’s whereabouts, but said the United States had not acted on the information. Bush administration officials had charged that it was the Pakistanis who were reluctant to take on Mr. Mehsud and his network.

It now increasingly looks like Baitullah Mehsud is living on borrowed time. It would be interesting to see who gets to him first, the Pakistanis or the Americans. Pakistani Army would be well advised to attempt to capture him alive, something that the Americans and Indians would try and ensure does not happen.

Kabul may fall to Taleban – NYT

President Obama and his aides haven’t completed their policy review for Afghanistan — one of the most dangerous of the many foreign policy disasters George W. Bush so blithely left behind. But the situation is unraveling so quickly that aides say that the president decided that he had no choice but to send another 17,000 troops while commanders and diplomats try to come up with a strategy to stop the bloodletting and to try to block the Taliban from recapturing the country. There isn’t a lot of time.

Read Full Article | New York Times

Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall

Can Obama Read It?

The insurgents control more than 80% of Afghanistan. No other country understands Afghanistan better than Pakistan. After all there are more Pakhtuns in Pakistan than any other country–and Pakhtuns make up a huge portion of the Pakistan Army–disproportionate to their population. In fact the Pakhtuns of Islamabad understand everything about Kabul–certainly more than Hamid Karzai and certainly a lot more than Washington. Pakistan has always led the way in Afghanistan.

Read Full Article | Moin Ansari

Add Up the Damage

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

Read full article | Bob Herbert, NYT