Saturday, April 18, 2009

Pakistan: 'War on terror' sparks stand-off with US


AKI

Islamabad, 17 April (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - When Pakistan's military chief Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani visited Washington this week, his relationship with United States Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen bolstered hopes that a new relationship between the two armies could make gains in the fight against terrorism this yea But contrary to all expectations, the Pakistan Army refused point-blank a US demand to carry out special land operations in the northwestern Pakistani regions of Chitral and Kalam as well as in 12 other locations.

The relationship between Washington and Islamabad deteriorated further and was at an all time low recently when the Pakistan Army refused the US's demand to replace the Pushtun dominated Frontier Corps in the federally administered tribal areas close to the Afghan border and instead to send Punjabi dominated Pakistan Rangers there to fight the Taliban.

Washington made all US military and civilian aid packages conditional upon the fulfilment of this demand. But an extremely composed and precise reaction was given to it through Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

"Pakistan wants foreign help - not 'intrusion' or 'micro-management' from any foreign country,” he stated.

These new 'trust deficits' between Pakistan's armed forces and the US administration come at a time when Washington desperately needs Pakistani help to emerge from its deepening Afghan quagmire.

Pakistan’s most unexpected non-cooperation with the US could have serious consequences, according to some observers.

The request by the US to launch a special operation in Chitral and Kalam and elsewhere to hunt for Al-Qaeda's leader Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was the start of serious tension between the US and Pakistan that left Washington in quandary over how to react.

The request was based on some technical evidence presented to Pakistan's army and Washington expected a honeymoon period on newly built relationship with the new army chief rather than defiance.

Pakistan had complied with the US military's wish for it to train a group of Frontier Corps personnel to fight extremists in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Pakistan Frontier Corps comprises 80,000 paramilitaries who guard Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and south western Balochistan province, both bordering Afghanistan.

The FC is dominated by ethnic pushtuns. After its paramilitaries received training and were deployed in operations in Bajaur and Mohmand tribal areas as well as NWFP's troubled Swat district, the US surprised the Pakistani military by equating the FC paras to the Taliban.

The reasons the US gave for this claim included the FC paramilitaries' beards, their prayerful way of life and their alleged reluctance to open fire on the Taliban.

The Pakistan Rangers is also a paramilitary force. It is dominated by Punjabis. It is deployed in Sindh and Punjab provinces, which border India . Pakistan's army flatly refused the bizarre US demand that the Pakistan Rangers replace the FC paramilitaries in the northwest.

The army said the Pakistan Rangers were trained to fight against India and would be would be useless for any other operation.

This was when trust between the two armies began to fail and several other issues further complicated the relationship.

Pakistan frowned upon last week's visit to the region by Mullen and the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.

During the visit, statements were issued that the US would start hunting for Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Balochistan and urging Pakistan to give up its 'India-centric' policies.

The second statement implicitly criticised Pakistan’s refusal to relocate Pakistan Rangers from the Indian to the Afghan border. At the same time, Pakistan's ISI military intelligence gathered classified information that the CIA's director had held talks with Indian intelligence officials and sought their support to hunt Taliban leaders in Balochistan.

The India's Research and Analysis Wing secret service has conducted powerful proxy operations in Balochistan since the 1970s.

The CIA is perhaps the organisation with the best knowledge of the structure of Pakistan's ISI. The CIA conducted joint operations with ISI during the Afghan war and retained very close ties through exchange programmes in which ISI officials were sent for training in the US from the 1980s onwards.

ISI’s failure to win the war against the Taliban has always upset the US precisely because its intelligence officials are aware of its abilities.

US officials made a fresh bid to woo ISI recently but the ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, refused a private session and met the officials together with Kiyani.

And while the US delegation was still in Pakistan, ISI leaked the news to the media that due to 'derogatory' remarks made against ISI, its chief had refused to see the US officials, although chief army spokesman Athar Abbas and US officials scrambled to deny the reports.

While the Taliban’s Spring Offensive is expected by US officials to be bloodier than those of previous years, Pakistan and the US are engaged in a new debate.

“I think you would expect when the US taxpayer is providing money, assistance to a country, that we want to make sure we're not only getting our money's worth but that certain things that we care about, we want to see that they be dealt with," US State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.

"So we have said, we will provide and would like to provide 1.5 billion dollars over a five-year period to Pakistan," he said.

"Clearly, we are going to establish benchmarks. We want to see certain standards and goals met," Wood said.

But Pakistan showed no sign of complying with US demands.

Pakistan's prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said in a statement: "The US should not attach conditionalities to the assistance."

"Aid with strings attached would fail to generate the desired goodwill and results, " he added.

However oftenWashington flexes its muscles against Pakistan, Pakistan knows that by the second week of May, a record numbers of Taliban attacks will convince the US that it has exhausted many of its options in the South Asian "war on terror".

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