Where’ the beef? Rhetoric from the USA but no US arms for Pakistani Forontier Corps.
Pakistanis are bracing for a wave of suicide bombings and wondering what the change in government bought them. Pakistanis see more of the “same old” policies and are getting extremely weary of the actions taken by the current rulers. Both the PPP and by association the PMLN are under pressure to explain their policy in FATA and Waziristan. Under current circumstances, the ANP will probably quit the government and the PMLN exposed as lackeys of the PPP may become totally irrelevant.
This has long term implications for Pakistani politics because now the public seems to be disenchanted with both the major political parties–seen as two sides of the same coin–appartichiks of the American policy in South Asia.
The obsequious and compliant Zardari regime has not only allowed the US forces to enter Waziristan, it has actually helping the forces. Two days after Senator Biden announced the tripling of US aid to Islamabad, the PPPgovernment started taking action against the militants with which it had recently signed a peace deal. The peace deal is dead. Dozens of Pakistanis are also dead.
What is alive is the strange game played by the PPP. Its leader is visiting Turkey and Greece on government expense acting as if he was the president of Pakistan. The PMLN coalition partner is quiet. WIth US forces running rampant in Peshawar as well as Swat and Waziristan, the writ of the government has been established for this nanosecond. When the forces attack, the militants melt away. When the forces withdraw they come back.
Three top US agencies involved in Waziristan operations: New Yorker
* Report says Abu Laith al-Libi was one of most prominent victims of programme By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Three of the top United States clandestine agencies, along with US Special Forces and Pakistani intelligence outfits, are targeting the Taliban leadership in Waziristan, according to a report published here.
The exclusive report in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersch says that the programme is being executed by professionals from the NationalSecurity Agency, the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency, who are “right in there with the Special Forces and Pakistani intelligence, and they’re dealing with serious bad guys”. A source told the American investigative reporter: “We have to be really careful in calling in the missiles. We have to hit certain houses at certain times. The peopleon the ground are watching through binoculars a few hundred yards away and calling specific locations, in latitudeand longitude. We keep the Predator loitering until the targets go into a house, and we have to make sure our guys are far enough away so they don’t get hit.”
Prominent victim: One of the most prominent victims of the programme, a former official said, was Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior Taliban commander who was killed on January 31, reportedly in a missile strike that also killed 11 other people. The Washington Post reported on March 26 on the increasing number of successful strikes against Taliban and other insurgent units in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas. A follow-up article noted that, in response, the Taliban had killed “dozens of people” suspected of providing information to the US and its allies on the whereabouts of Taliban leaders. Many of the victims were thought to be American spies, and their executions – a beheading, in one case – were videotaped and distributed by DVD as a warning to others.
Another ex-US intelligence official, commenting on the US attempting something similar in Iran, warned, “It’s one thing to engage in selective strikes and assassinations in Waziristan and another in Iran. The White House believes that one size fits all, but the legalissues surrounding extrajudicial killings in Waziristan are less of a problem because Al Qaedaand the Taliban cross the border into Afghanistan and back again, often with US and NATO forces in hot pursuit. The situation is not nearly as clear in the Iranian case. All the considerations – judicial, strategic, and political – are different in Iran.”
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