U.S. Commanders Seeking to Widen Pakistan Attacks

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U.S. Commanders Seeking to Widen Pakistan Attacks

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: April 20, 2008

WASHINGTON — American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months

urged a widening of the war that could include American attacks on

indigenous Pakistani militants in the tribal areas inside Pakistan,

according to United States officials.

The requests have been rebuffed for now, the officials said, after

deliberations in Washington among senior Bush administration

officials who fear that attacking Pakistani radicals may anger

Pakistan's new government, which is negotiating with the militants,

and destabilize an already fragile security situation.

American commanders would prefer that Pakistani forces attack the

militants, but Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas have

slowed recently to avoid upsetting the negotiations.

Pakistan's government has given the Central Intelligence Agency

limited authority to kill Arab and other foreign operatives in the

tribal areas, using remotely piloted Predator aircraft. But

administration officials say the Pakistani government has put far

greater restrictions on American operations against indigenous

Pakistani militant groups, including one commanded by Sirajuddin

Haqqani, son of the legendary militant leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, as

well as the network led by Baitullah Mehsud that is believed to have

been behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

American intelligence officials say that the threat emanating from

Pakistan's tribal areas is growing, and that Pakistani networks there

have taken on an increasingly important role as an ally of Al Qaeda

in plotting attacks against American and other allied troops in

Afghanistan, and in helping foreign operatives plan attacks on

targets in the West. The officials said the American military's

proposals included options for limited cross-border artillery strikes

into Pakistan, missile attacks by Predator aircraft or raids by small

teams of C.I.A. paramilitary forces or Special Operations forces.

In recent months, the American military officials in Afghanistan who

are urging attacks in Pakistan discussed a list of potential targets

with the United States ambassador in Pakistan, Anne W. ,

officials said.

The requests by the American commanders for attacks on targets in

Pakistan were described by officials who had been briefed on the

discussions but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the

discussions involved possible future operations.

The discussions are the latest example of a recurring problem for the

White House: that the place where the terrorist threat is most acute

is the place where American forces are most restricted from acting.

Officials involved in the debate said that the question of attacking

Pakistani militants was especially delicate because some militant

leaders, including Mr. Haqqani, were believed to still be on the

payroll of Pakistan's intelligence service, called the Inter-Services

Intelligence Directorate, or another part of Pakistan's intelligence

apparatus.

For years the intelligence services have relied on a web of sources

among Pakistani militant groups to collect information on foreign

groups like Al Qaeda that have operated in the tribal areas.

A Pentagon adviser said military intelligence officers in Afghanistan

had drawn up the detailed list of potential targets that was

discussed with Ambassador . It is unclear which senior

officials in Washington were involved in the debate over whether to

authorize attacks.

One administration official said the internal discussions in

Washington involved President Bush's top national security aides, and

took place earlier this year.

Military and intelligence officials say that Al Qaeda and its

affiliates now have a haven to plan attacks, just as they used camps

in Afghanistan before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Gen. V.

Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said last month that the security

situation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border " presents clear and

present danger to Afghanistan, to Pakistan and to the West in

general, and to the United States in particular. "

American officials involved in the discussions said that they had not

ruled out striking Pakistani militants in the tribal areas. American

forces in Afghanistan are authorized to attack targets in Pakistan in

self-defense or if they are in " hot pursuit " of militants fleeing

back to havens across the border.

American-led forces in Afghanistan fired artillery at what they

suspected was a Haqqani network safe house on March 12 that an

American spokesman said posed an " imminent threat. " But the Pakistani

Army said the strike killed only civilians.

Administration officials say the risk of angering the new government

in Pakistan and stirring increased anti-American sentiment in the

tribal areas outweighs the benefits of dismantling militant networks

in the region.

" It's certainly something we want to get to, but not yet, " said one

Bush administration official. " If you do it now, you can expect to do

it without Pakistani approval, and you can expect to do it only once

because the Pakistanis will never help us again. "

Spokesmen for the White House and State Department declined to

comment, as did a spokeswoman for Ambassador in Pakistan.

Intelligence officials say they believe that leaders of the Pakistani

Taliban and other militant groups have in recent months forged closer

ties to the cadre of Qaeda leaders in the tribal areas. Officials

have said that they thought the leader of the Taliban there,

Jalaluddin Haqqani, may have died last year. But Mr. Haqqani recently

released a video denying those reports and made reference to a

military attack in eastern Afghanistan that happened this March. Mr.

Haqqani's son, Sirajuddin, has also made aggressive efforts to

recruit foreign fighters from the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in

Central Asia to move to Pakistan.

" The relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda and

other groups such as the Haqqani network, are stronger today than

they were, and they're primarily based on the Pakistani side of the

border, " said Seth , an analyst with the RAND Corporation, in

Congressional testimony this month after his trip to Afghanistan.

The Haqqanis are suspected of organizing a suicide attack on March 3

that killed two American soldiers at an Afghan government office.

Sirajuddin Haqqani is also suspected of orchestrating a suicide bomb

attack in January at the Serena Hotel in Kabul that killed six people.

The discussions over how to combat Al Qaeda and Pakistani militant

networks in the tribal areas have been going on for nearly two years,

as American policy makers have weighed the growing militant threat in

the border area against unilateral American action that could

politically weaken President Pervez Musharraf, a close ally in the

global counterterrorism campaign.

A few weeks after Ms. Bhutto's assassination in December, two senior

American intelligence officials reached a quiet understanding with

Mr. Musharraf to intensify secret strikes against suspected

terrorists by Predator aircraft launched in Pakistan.

American officials have expressed alarm that the leaders of

Pakistan's new coalition government, Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan

Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), are

negotiating with militants believed to be responsible for an

increasing number of suicide attacks against the security forces and

political figures.

The new government has signaled that in its relations with

Washington, it wants to take a path more independent than the one

followed by the previous government and to use military force in the

tribal areas only as a last resort.

In Congressional testimony this month, a former top American

commander in Afghanistan said the need for more action was urgent. " A

senior member of the administration needs to go to Pakistan and take

the intelligence we have on Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani

network inside of Pakistan and lay it out for their most senior

leadership, " said the retired commander, Lt. Gen. W. Barno.

He said the American envoy should " show them exactly what we know

about, what they don't know about what's going on in their tribal

areas and say, this is not a tolerable situation for you nor for us. "

" And, " he added, " we need to sit down and think through what we can

collectively do about this. "