Pakistan: Now or Never?

from Afghan Journal:

Drone strikes are police work, not an act of war?

Launching an air strike in another nation would normally be considered an act of aggression. But advocates of America's rapidly expanding unmanned drone programme don't see it that way.

They are arguing, as Tom Ricks writes on his blog The Best Defense over at Foreign Policy, that the campaign to kill militants with missile strikes from these unmanned aircraft, is more like police action in a tough neighbourhood than a military conflict.

These raids conducted by sinister-looking Predator or Reaper aircraft in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen - and since last month in Somalia - should not be seen as a challenge to states and their authority. Instead they are meant to supplement the power of governments that are either unable to or unwilling to fight the militants operating from their territories.

They are precise, limited, strikes aimed at taking down specific individuals, and in that sense are more like the police going after criminals, rather than a full-on military assault. Ricks writes: 

"Police work involves small arms used precisely. Drones aren't pistols, but firing one Hellfire at a Land Rover is more like a police action than it is like a large-scale military offensive with artillery barrages, armored columns, and infantry assaults."

It is a bit of a stretch, though, to compare a police action in a rough part of town with the kind of devastation that the laser-guided Hellfire missile can rain down when fired from unmanned aircraft as scores of Pakistani civilians in the troubled northwest region  discovered in the initial days of the programme launched by the Bush administration.

from Afghan Journal:

Pakistan’s Shamsi base : a mystery wrapped in a riddle

Pakistan Defence Minister Mukhtar Ahmad's comments this week that the government had ended U.S. drone flights out of Shamsi air base deep in southwest Baluchistan province has injected new controversy in their troubled relationship. U.S. officials appeared to scoff at Mukhtar's remarks, saying they had no plans to vacate the base from where they have in the past launched unmanned Predator aircraft targeting militant havens in the northwest region.

Washington's dismissal of the Pakistan government's stand is quite extraordinary. Can a country, even if it is the world's strongest power, continue to use an air base despite the refusal of the host country ?  The United States is effectively encamped in Pakistan using its air strip to run a not-so-secret assassination campaign  against militant leaders including Pakistanis while Islamabad fumes.

One possible reason Washington can get away with it is that the base may not belong to Pakistan. Ahmed said that Shamsi had been leased to the United Arab Emirates in 1992 and they had handed over operational control to the United States when it launched the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and eventually Pakistan.  Pakistan's air force made the same disclosure during an in-camera hearing for parliament following the secret raid to kill Osama bin Laden in May, the Pakistani press reported at the time and again this week as controversy swirled over Mukhtar's comment.

It raises troubling issues of sovereignty for Pakistanis as an editorial in The Daily Times noted :

The questions are many. What is the agreement regarding Shamsi air base? If the Pakistanis are in control of it, what need is there to `ask` the Americans to leave? If the Americans control it, under what laws and agreement have they been permitted to and who on the Pakistani side has signed off on it?

It is not the first time the issue of control of Shamsi has erupted in public. A 2005 U.S. diplomatic cable published by Dawn records the UAE government's displeasure at leak of reports about its military cooperation with the United States inside Pakistan.  The cable from the U.S. embassy in Abu Dhabi says that the UAE government had complained about  General Tommy Franks, former Commander of U.S. Central Command, writing  in his book, “”American Soldier”" that U.S. forces had made use of Sheikh Zayed’s private airstrip in Baluchistan, Pakistan.  The cable said :

Pakistan vs U.S. Dumbing down the drones debate

If there was one thing the United States might have learned in a decade of war is that military might alone cannot compensate for lack of knowledge about people and conditions on the ground.  That was true in Afghanistan and Iraq, and may also turn out to be the case in Libya.

Yet the heated  debate about using Predator drones to target militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan – triggered by the spy row between the CIA and the ISI – appears to be falling into a familiar pattern – keep bombing versus stop bombing. Not whether, when and how drones might be effective, based on specific conditions and knowledge of the ground, and when they are counter-productive. 

Combined with that is a tendency to discuss the use of drones in isolation without taking account of the historical context (Pakistan and the United States have been rowing about this for several years – it is not new)  or indeed the broader political context (a botched drone attack by the CIA is guaranteed to enrage all the more if it comes at a time when American diplomats are trying to convince Pakistan they want to improve relations.)  

Consider, for example, the case of a tribesman with a performing monkey who gathered an audience of turban-clad, rifle-bearing men around him in a village in 2005. The U.S. controllers of the drone mistook the event for a weapons-training session or military briefing and dropped a missile, killing many in the audience.  That story was recounted by General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, now head of the Pakistan Army, and quoted by Brian Cloughley in his book “War, Coups and Terror”. “This, said the General, was an example of lack of cultural understanding,” wrote Cloughley.

Then there was the botched drone attack on Damadola in Bajaur agency in 2006 – by some accounts it was intended to target al Qaeda deputy Ayman al Zawahiri.  According to the Pakistani version, many women and children were among the victims of the strike, enraging the local population, driving them into the arms of local Taliban militants and fuelling a ferocious insurgency which took the Pakistan military several years to contain.

In language that could have been written today (and it has) the Guardian reported at the time that Pakistan had lodged a strong protest with the Americans over the attack and “the strained relation between Pakistan and the U.S. has been pushed to breaking point.” It blamed the botched attack on faulty intelligence on the ground.

Compare that, though, to the killing of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in a drone strike in 2009.  His death was welcomed by Pakistani authorities, and indeed by many ordinary Pakistanis who blamed him for bomb attacks in Pakistan. Good intelligence. Specific target. And probably the high point of cooperation between the United States and Pakistan over the use of drones.

Pakistan’s debate on drones, lifting the secrecy

In a rare admission of the effectiveness of drone strikes, a senior Pakistani military officer has said most of those killed are hard-core militants, including foreigners, according to Dawn newspaper.

It quotes Major-General Ghayur Mehmood as telling reporters at a briefing in Miramshah, in North Waziristan, that, “Myths and rumours about US predator strikes and the casualty figures are many, but it’s a reality that many of those being killed in these strikes are hardcore elements, a sizeable number of them foreigners.”

“Yes there are a few civilian casualties in such precision strikes, but a majority of those eliminated are terrorists, including foreign terrorist elements,” he said.

The comments may not have been entirely authorised — the New York Times quoted Pakistan Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas as playing down the remarks. Abbas called them a “personal assessment”. ”General Abbas emphasised that the army supported the public policy of the government that drone strikes inside Pakistani territory ‘do more harm than good’,” the newspaper said.

And nor were they an unqualified endorsement of the attacks in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.  According to Dawn, “Maj-Gen Ghayur, who is in charge of troops in North Waziristan, admitted that the drone attacks had negative fallout, scaring the local population and causing their migration to other places. Gen Ghayur said the drone attacks also had social and political repercussions and law-enforcement agencies often felt the heat.”

But it is unlikely that such a high-ranking officer would have made such comments if they did not reflect the thinking of the army leadership.  The big question now is on whether they have lifted the lid on what has become a truly poisonous debate within Pakistan on drone attacks.

It has long been an open secret that the drone attacks are carried out with the tacit endorsement of the Pakistani military, with Pakistani intelligence helping to identify targets on the ground.  Yet their covert nature, and a widespread view propagated by some sections of the media that most of those killed are civilians, has fuelled anti-Americanism and stoked conspiracy theories about U.S. intentions in Pakistan.

Concern mounts over U.S. aid worker kidnapped in Pakistan

Concern is mounting over the health of John Solecki, an American working for the UNHCR, who was kidnapped from the Pakistani city of Quetta 45 days ago.

The UN said it was worried about an apparent deterioration in his health after a little known Baluch group, which says it is holding him, called a local news agency saying he was seriously ill with a heart condition.

Three deadlines set by a group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation United Front have passed and a new one was meant to end on Thursday. The group wants the release of 1,000 Baluch prisoners, including women, said to be held in Pakistan government cells.

With little sign of any resolution Pakistani media are questioning the seriousness of the effort to secure Solecki’s release. Neither the Baluch government nor the government in Islamabad had taken the task seriously, the liberal Daily Times said. “No matter who kidnapped Solecki, observers say the government cannot absolve itself of the primary responsibility of protecting all those in Pakistan’s territory,” it said.

And the News wrote of the “casual cruelty” involved in picking up an unarmed aid worker on his way to work. It said there were credible reports that extremist groups had a a sort of “rate card” of potential victims. grading them by their public profile and relative value. And since the number of foreigners on Pakistani soil is dwindling fast, the value of those who remain such as Solecki is high. 

The curious tale of America’s Predators in Pakistan

America’s deadly Predator unmanned planes won’t go away from the skies above Pakistan’s troubled northwest, and the controversy over whether these aircraft operate from Pakistani soil only gets more intense.

Following a U.S. senator disclosure that the drones, which have wrecked such havoc and are the cause of much popular anger against the United States, were being flown from within the country, Pakistan’s The News conducted its own investigation.

It has found old Google earth satellite pictures from 2006 showing U.S. drones parked on a runway whose coordinates 27 degrees 51 minutes north, 65 degrees and 10 minutes east place it in Baluchistan.

While the paper identified the three robotic planes parked on the runway as the massive Global Hawks, the specialists over at Danger Room say they are more likely to be the Predators that the United States has come to rely upon heavily on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Britain’s Times also said it had a copy of the Google image showing drones outside a hangar at the edge of a runway whose coordinates placed it in Pakistan.

(more…)

U.S. steps up missile strikes in Pakistan’s northwest

U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan have killed more than 50 people in the past three days in what appears to be an escalation of the military campaign in the troubled region along the Afghan border, conducted largely by unmanned drone aircraft.

On Saturday, a remote-controlled US drone bombed compounds in South Waziristan, killing at least 25 people. And on Monday, another US drone struck the Kurram tribal region, killing 26. Kurram had not been targeted earlier, so in that sense it represented a broadening of the campaign, while the high death toll speaks for the intensity of the strikes.

Both attacks appeared aimed at militants loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader in Pakistan, the New York Times said.

The United States has now targetted Pakistan four times since President Barack Obama took office last month, ending any lingering expectations that he might reverse the course set by the previous administration in hunting al Qaeda and the Taliban holed up in the northwest region. Indeed the strikes are a reminder of Obama’s campaign promise that the United States would go after al Qaeda inside Pakistan if it was unable or unwilling to do so.

For Pakistan the strikes come at a time when it is seething over remarks by a U.S. senator who said that Predator drone aircraft that were carrying out the strikes were being flown from an air base inside Pakistan. With Pakistani newspapers latching on to Senator Diane Feinstein’s remarks at a Senate intelligence committee hearing, a weak civilian government is running for cover.

Up until now, as Danger Room blog  said, Islamabad had sort of kept up a “don’t ask don’t tell” policy on the Predator strikes which are deeply unpopular in the country.  Officials would denounce the strikes in public while also taking a sneak look at the planes’ video feeds, it said.

U.S. Predator strikes cripple al Qaeda in Pakistan?

America’s ramped-up Predator drone campaign against al Qaeda in Pakistan’s northwest is starting to pay off, according to U.S. and Pakistani intelligence authorities quoted in a clutch of media reports.

Eleven of the group’s top 20 “high value targets” along the Afghan border have been eliminated in the past six months  Newsweek magazine reports, citing Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The strikes by the unmanned drones circling high above Pakistan’s rugged tribal areas have been so pin-pointed that in one case a missile fired at a hideout in North Waziristan didn’t just hit the right house, but the room in which Mustafa al-Misri (“Mustafa the Egyptian”) and several other Qaeda operatives were holed up. the magazine reports, quoting a Taliban sub-commander.

A U.S. counter-terrorism official goes so far as to suggest that the CIA-directed strikes have been so successful that it was possible to foresee a “complete al Qaeda defeat” in the mountainous region , according to this report in America’s National Public Radio.

Is that stretching the gains,  a bit too triumphalist a picture?

Al Qaeda’s leadership cadre had been “decimated” with up to a dozen senior and mid-level operatives killed as a  result of the strikes and the remaining leaders reeling from the attacks, U.S. officials say in the NPR report, adding achievements of the past several months should not be under-stated.

What does Pakistan want from U.S. envoy Holbrooke ?

Former Pakistan ambassador to London and Washington Maleeha Lodhi has given a taste of what Richard Holbrooke can expect when he makes his maiden visit to Islamabad next week in his new role as President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

She may have owed her diplomatic career to General Pervez Musharraf,  but being an ex-official does not mean she has lost touch.

Writing in The News, the paper she used to edit, Lodhi listed an eight-point agenda for Pakistan as it braces for Holbrooke, a diplomat with a reputation for playing hardball.

Lines have to be drawn to make the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and understand the limits of cooperation, Lodhi writes in an opinion piece titled “Back to the Future”.

Here’s the Pakistani agenda as she sees it : 1. U.S. missile attacks on Pakistani territory should end. 2. Assistance under the Biden-Luger bill should be offered with no strings attached. 3. Give Pakistan helicopters, night vision, radar to fight a counter-insurgency, it doesn’t need conventional arms from America. 4. Give Pakistan a break in trade agreements. The all- important textile industry needs a lifeline. 5. Make India part of the equation for stabilising Kashmir, by recognising Pakistan’s security concerns on its eastern border. 6. The United States should reshape its Afghan policy to take into account Pakistan’s security concerns, otherwise no strategy will work. 7. Pakistan must also tell the United States that sending more troops to Afghanistan without a change in strategy will backfire. 8. Policies to stabilise Afghanistan should not end up destabilising Pakistan. The Taliban should be prised away from al Qaeda, and a reconciliation process with the Taliban begun.

U.S. missile strikes on Pakistan : more of the same under Obama or worse to come?

The first U.S. missiles have struck Pakistan since U.S. President Barack Obama  took office, dispelling any possibility that he might relent on these raids that have so angered Pakistanis, many of whom think it only engenders reprisal attacks from militants on their cities.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari protested to the U.S. ambassador over Friday’s twin raids in South and North Waziristan and  newspaper editorialists and commentators are worried this is just a foretaste of things to come. The strikes, the first since Jan 2, have led the Dawn newspaper to recall Obama’s statements during the presidential camapaign when he repeatedly said he would “take out high value terrorist targets” inside Pakistan if it was unable or unwilling to do so.

“Three days into Obama’s presidency, we have the first evidence of how his promise will translate into action. Drone attacks in South and North Waziristan have killed at least 14 people, including what the media now routinely refers to as ‘foreign militants’, ” the newspaper said.

Early signs from Washington suggest that it will continue military action on Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), considered to be place where al Qaeda has reconstituted itself, the newspaper said.  At the same time it will demand that Pakistan do more against the militants, tying aid to the armed forces with achieving concrete results.

The News wrote that the ‘rather optimistic assurance” given by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani earlier on that the Predator drone attacks would stop once Obama took charge had been dashed. And it added that it wasn’t clear why or how Gilani made such a statement when he was in no position to issue a guarantee on behalf of the Americans.