Past time for the US Congress to declare war on Muslim Pakistan.

 

B

 

Pakistan ISI urged attacks on U.S. targets: officials

ReutersBy Mark Hosenball | Reuters - 2 hrs 21 mins ago

http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-isi-urged-attacks-u-targets-officials-0022015
62.html

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- U.S. officials said there was mounting evidence that
Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency had encouraged a guerrilla network
to attack U.S. targets, while a Senate committee voted to make aid to
Islamabad conditional on fighting the militants.

The decision by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which did not specify
any amount of aid for Pakistan in fiscal 2012, reflects growing anger in
Washington over militants operating out of Pakistan and battling U.S. troops
in Afghanistan.

Some U.S. intelligence reporting alleges that Pakistan's Inter Services
Intelligence directorate (ISI) specifically directed, or urged, the Haqqani
network to carry out an attack last week on the U.S. Embassy and a NATO
headquarters in Kabul, according to two U.S. officials and a source familiar
with recent U.S.-Pakistan official contacts.

The Haqqani network is one of three, and perhaps the most feared, allied
insurgent factions fighting U.S.-led NATO and Afghan troops under the
Taliban banner in Afghanistan.

However, U.S. officials cautioned that the information that Pakistan's spy
agency was encouraging the militants was uncorroborated.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he had
pressed Pakistan's army chief for Islamabad to break its links with the
militant group.

"We covered ... the need for the Haqqani Network to disengage, specifically
the need for the ISI to disconnect from Haqqani and from this proxy war that
they're fighting," he said in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace on Tuesday.

"The ISI has been doing this - working for - supporting proxies for an
extended period of time. It is a strategy in the country and I think that
strategic approach has to shift in the future."

A Pakistani official sought to play down the differences.

"Pakistan values its relationship with the U.S. and is committed to
eliminating terrorism in Afghanistan and from our soil," said the official.
"We will look at all evidence shared by the U.S. side and deal harshly with
anyone and everyone responsible for terrorism."

The Senate committee approved $1 billion in aid to support
counter-insurgency operations by Pakistan's military, but voted to make this
and any economic aid conditional on Islamabad cooperating with Washington
against militant groups including the Haqqanis.

Washington has allocated about $20 billion for Pakistan over the last
decade. In fiscal 2010, Congress approved $1.7 billion for economic aid for
Pakistan, and $2.7 billion in security aid, the Congressional Research
Service says.

U.S. aid could be crucial for Pakistan next year as it has decided not to
seek a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan when its current program
ends at the end of this month.

Pakistan has been struggling since 2008 to keep its economy afloat with an
$11 billion IMF loan. About $3 billion is left to be disbursed.

SIMMERING

The simmering tension between Washington and Islamabad came to a head last
week with the attack on the Kabul embassy. It was a major blow as the United
States hopes to nudge Afghanistan toward stability and gradually bring home
U.S. forces after a decade of war.

Since then, American officials, including the ambassador in Islamabad and
Mullen have issued unusually blunt criticism of Pakistan's failure to curb
the Haqqani group.

But the U.S. administration appears to have few options.

One option -- another cross-border raid, like the Navy SEAL mission that
killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May -- may be tempting in some
quarters. But the risks are high and the backlash from Pakistan would be
fierce, almost certainly harming what counter-terrorism cooperation exists.

"The administration has thrown everything at this -- high-level meetings,
tons of money, all of these overtures, and it hasn't gotten us anywhere,"
said Caroline Wadhams, a security analyst in Washington.

"This can't go on forever," she said, "but the problem is that we have so
little leverage."

Pakistan denies that it still has ties to the Haqqanis but U.S. frustration
seems to be mounting.

"Look at the language, it's clear the Americans are very frustrated with the
Pakistanis. I think they are preparing the ground for more action against
the Haqqanis," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, editor of the Peshawar edition of
the News daily and an expert on Afghanistan.

Vali Nasr, who until this spring was a senior official in the U.S. State
Department's Afghanistan-Pakistan office, said efforts to prompt Pakistani
action against militants with increased public pressure had no worked.

"They are not blinking," he said.

 

 



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