http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/world/asia/21intel.html?_r=1&emc=na
U.S. Seeks to Expand Ground Raids in Pakistan
By MARK MAZZETTI and DEXTER FILKINS
Published: December 20, 2010
WASHINGTON — Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are
pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids
across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas, a risky strategy
reflecting the growing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts to root out
militants there.
The proposal, described by American officials in Washington and
Afghanistan, would escalate military activities inside Pakistan, where
the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of
fears of provoking a backlash.
The plan has not yet been approved, but military and political leaders
say a renewed sense of urgency has taken hold, as the deadline
approaches for the Obama administration to begin withdrawing its
forces from Afghanistan. Even with the risks, military commanders say
that using American Special Operations troops could bring an
intelligence windfall, if militants were captured, brought back across
the border into Afghanistan and interrogated.
The Americans are known to have made no more than a handful of forays
across the border into Pakistan, in operations that have infuriated
Pakistani officials. Now, American military officers appear confident
that a shift in policy could allow for more routine incursions.
America’s clandestine war in Pakistan has for the most part been
carried out by armeddrones operated by the C.I.A.
Additionally, in recent years, Afghan militias backed by the C.I.A.
have carried out a number of secret missions into Pakistan’s tribal
areas. These operations in Pakistan by Afghan operatives, known as
Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, have been previously reported as
solely intelligence-gathering operations. But interviews in recent
weeks revealed that on at least one occasion, the Afghans went on the
offensive and destroyed a militant weapons cache.
The decision to expand American military activity in Pakistan, which
would almost certainly have to be approved by President Obama himself,
would amount to the opening of a new front in the nine-year-old war,
which has grown increasingly unpopular among Americans. It would run
the risk of angering a Pakistani government that has been an uneasy
ally in the war in Afghanistan, particularly if it leads to civilian
casualties or highly public confrontations.
Still, one senior American officer said, “We’ve never been as close as
we are now to getting the go-ahead to go across.”
The officials who described the proposal and the intelligence
operations declined to be identified by name discussing classified
information.
Ground operations in Pakistan remain controversial in Washington, and
there may be a debate over the proposal. One senior administration
official said he was not in favor of cross-border operations — which
he said have been generally “counterproductive” — unless they were
directed against top leaders of Al Qaeda. He expressed concern that
political fallout in Pakistan could negate any tactical gains.
Still, as evidence mounts that Pakistani troops are unlikely to stage
a major offensive into the militant stronghold of North Waziristan,
where Al Qaeda’s top leaders are thought to be taking shelter, United
States commanders have renewed their push for approval to send
American commando teams into Pakistan.
In announcing the results of a review of the strategy in Afghanistan,
Obama administration officials said they were considering expanded
American operations to deal with threats inside Pakistan. They offered
no specifics.
In interviews in Washington and Kabul, American officials said that
officers were drawing up plans to begin ground operations to capture
or kill leaders from the Taliban and the Haqqani network. American
officers say they are particularly eager to capture, as opposed to
kill, militant leaders, who they say can offer intelligence to guide
future operations.
Even before finalizing any plans to increase raids across the border,
the Obama administration has already stepped up its air assaults in
the tribal areas with an unprecedented number of C.I.A. drone strikes
this year. Since September, the spy agency has carried out more than
50 drone attacks in North Waziristan and elsewhere — compared with 60
strikes in the preceding eight months.
In interviews, the officials offered a more detailed description of
two operations since 2008 in which Afghans working under the direction
of the C.I.A. — a militia called the Paktika Defense Force — crossed
the border into Pakistan. They also offered a richer account of the
activities of these militia groups throughout the country.
According to an Afghan political leader, one of the raids was
initiated to capture a Taliban commander working inside Pakistan. When
the Afghan troops reached the compound, they did not find the Taliban
commander, but the Pakistani militants opened fire on them, the Afghan
said.
An American official disputed this account, saying that the C.I.A.
militias are not sent over the border to capture militant leaders, but
merely to gather intelligence.
In a second raid, the Paktika militia attacked and destroyed a Taliban
ammunition depot and returned to base, officials said. Both of the
C.I.A.-backed raids were aimed at compounds only a few miles inside
Pakistani territory.
The Paktika Defense Force is one of six C.I.A.-trained Afghan militias
that serve as a special operations force against insurgents throughout
Afghanistan. The other militias operate around the cities of Kandahar,
Kabul and Jalalabad as well as in the rural provinces of Khost and
Kunar.
One American military officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity,
said the C.I.A.-backed militia near Khost had recently deployed in the
mountains along the Pakistan border, where it would spend the winter
trying to intercept Taliban fighters. So far, the C.I.A.-backed force
has proven effective, he said.
“The rockets we endured for the past seven months suddenly dried up,”
the officer said.
In the past, the American military has had only limited success in its
few cross-border operations. In October, an American military
helicopter accidently killed a group of Pakistani soldiers during a
flight over the border in pursuit of militants. The episode infuriated
Pakistan’s government, which temporarily shut down American military
supply routes into Pakistan. Several fuel trucks sitting at the border
were destroyed by insurgents, and American officials publicly
apologized.
Two years earlier, in September 2008, American commandos carried out a
raid in Pakistan’s tribal areas and killed several people suspected of
being insurgents. The episode led to outrage among Pakistan’s leaders
— and warnings not to try again.
Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington, and Dexter Filkins from Kabul,
Afghanistan. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
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