American forces launched a raid inside Pakistan Wednesday, a senior U.S.
military official said, in the first known U.S. ground assault in Pakistan
against a suspected Taliban haven. The government condemned the attack,saying
it killed at least 15 people.
The American official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of cross border operations, told The Associated Press that the raid
occurred on Pakistani soil about one mile from the Afghan border. The official
didn't provide any other details.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry protested saying U.S.-led troops flew in from
Afghanistan for the attack on a village in the country's wild tribal belt.. A
Pakistan army spokesman warned that the apparent escalation from recent foreign
missile strikes on militant targets along the Afghan border would further anger
Pakistanis and undercut cooperation in the war against terrorist groups.
The boldness of the thrust fed speculation about the intended target. But it
was unclear whether any extremist leader was killed or captured in the
operation, which occurred in one of the militant strongholds dotting a frontier
region considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida's No.
2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.
U.S. military and civilian officials declined to respond directly to Pakistan's
complaints. But one official, a South Asia expert who agreed to discuss the
situation only if not quoted by name, suggested the target of any raid like
that reported Wednesday would have to be extremely important to risk an almost
assured "big backlash" from Pakistan.
"You have to consider that something like this will be a more-or-less once-off
opportunity for which we will have to pay a price in terms of Pakistani
cooperation," the official said.
Suspected U.S. missile attacks killed at least two al-Qaida commanders this
year in the same region, drawing protests from Pakistan's government that its
sovereignty was under attack. U.S. officials did not acknowledge any
involvement in those attacks.
But American commanders have been complaining publicly that Pakistan puts too
little pressure on militant groups that are blamed for mounting violence in
Afghanistan, stirring speculation that U.S. forces might lash out across the
frontier.
Some administration officials have been pressing President Bush to direct U.S.
troops in Afghanistan to be more aggressive in pursuing militants into Pakistan
on foot as part of a proposed radical shift in regional counterterrorism
strategy, the AP learned. The debate was the subject of a late July meeting at
the White House of some of Bush's top national security advisers.
Circumstances surrounding Wednesday's raid weren't clear, but U.S. rules of
engagement allow American troops to pursue militants across the border into
Pakistan when they are attacked.
However, Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said hot pursuit wasn't
an issue, adding that the attack "was completely unprovoked." He said Pakistani
troops were near the village and saw and heard nothing to suggest the U.S.
forces were pursuing insurgents.
The raid comes at a particularly sensitive time for the Pakistan government
which is trying to overcome political divisions and choose a new president on
the one hand, while the army is battling the militants on the other.
In other signs of Pakistan's precarious stability three days before legislators
elect a successor to Pervez Musharraf as president, snipers shot at the prime
minister's limousine near Islamabad and government troops killed two dozen
militants in another area of the restive northwest.
Pakistani officials said they were lodging strong protests with the U.S.
government and its military representative in Islamabad about Wednesday's raid
in the South Waziristan area, a notorious hot bed of militant activity.
The Foreign Ministry called the strike "a gross violation of Pakistan's
territory," saying it could "undermine the very basis of cooperation and may
fuel the fire of hatred and violence that we are trying to extinguish."
Prior to the U.S. military confirming the U.S. raid, Pakistan government and
military officials had insisted that either the NATO force or the U.S.-led
coalition in Afghanistan — both commanded by American generals — were
responsible. A spokesman for NATO troops in Afghanistan denied any involvement.
The army's spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said the attack was the first
incursion onto Pakistani soil by troops from the foreign forces that ousted
Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S.
He said the attack would undermine Pakistan's efforts to isolate Islamic
extremists and could threaten NATO's major supply lines, which snake from
Pakistan's Indian Ocean port of Karachi through the tribal region into
Afghanistan.
"We cannot afford a huge uprising at the level of tribe," Abbas said. "That
would be completely counterproductive and doesn't help the cause of fighting
terrorism in the area."
The Pakistani anger threatens to upset efforts by American commanders to draw
Pakistan's military into the U.S. strategy of dealing harshly with the
militants.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met last week with
Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistani army chief. Mullen said he came away
encouraged that Pakistanis were becoming more focused on the problem of
militants using the country as a safe haven.
However, Abbas, the army spokesman, said Wednesday that cross-border commando
operations were not discussed and he reiterated Pakistan's position that its
forces should be exclusively responsible for operations on its territory.
Pakistani officials say the U.S. and NATO should share intelligence and allow
Pakistani troops to execute any raids needed inside Pakistan. However,
Washington has accused rogue elements in Pakistan's main intelligence service
of leaking sensitive information to militants.
American officials say destroying militant sanctuaries in Pakistani tribal
regions is key to defeating Taliban-led militants in Afghanistan whose
insurgency has strengthened every year since the fundamentalist militia was
ousted for harboring bin Laden.
But there has been debate in Washington over how far the U.S. can go on its
own.
Citing witness and intelligence reports, Abbas said troops flew in on at least
one big CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter, blasted their way into several
houses and gunned down men they found there.
He said there was no evidence that any of those killed were insurgents or that
the raiders abducted any militant leader, but he acknowledged Pakistan's
military had no firsthand account.
There were differing reports on how many people were killed. The provincial
governor claimed 20 civilians, including women and children, died. Army and
intelligence officials, as well as residents, said 15 people were killed.
Habib Khan Wazir, an area resident, said he heard helicopters, then an exchange
of gunfire.
"Later, I saw 15 bodies inside and outside two homes. They had been shot in the
head," Wazir said by phone. He claimed all the dead were civilians.
Near Islamabad, meanwhile, snipers fired at a motorcade near the capital as it
headed to the airport to pick up the prime minister, hitting the window of his
car at least twice, officials said. Neither Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
nor his staff were in the vehicles.
Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the banned militant organization Tahrik-e-Taliban,
claimed responsibility and pledged more attacks in retaliation for army
operations in tribal areas and the Swat Valley along the border with
Afghanistan.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined to comment on the
claimed cross-border raid, but she said the U.S. would continue to work with
Gilani's government.
"I am relieved, of course, that the incident aimed at the Pakistani prime
minister did not succeed," Rice said.
"We're going to be in continued contact with the Pakistanis as we both try to
help them to build a strong economic foundation, to build a strong democratic
foundation and to fight the terrorists who are a threat not just to the United
States and to Afghanistan but to Pakistan as well."
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