[Peace-discuss] NYT: "Obama Widens Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan"

[C. G. Estabrook]

"...Obama is continuing, and ... extending, Bush administration policy in using 
American spy agencies against terrorism suspects [sic] in Pakistan, as he had 
promised to do during his presidential campaign."


	The New York Times
	February 21, 2009
	Obama Widens Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan
	By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON — With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama 
administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence 
Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the 
Pakistani government.

The missile strikes on training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud represent a 
broadening of the American campaign inside Pakistan, which has been largely 
carried out by drone aircraft. Under President Bush, the United States 
frequently attacked militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban involved in 
cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but had stopped short of raids aimed at 
Mr. Mehsud and his followers, who have played less of a direct role in attacks 
on American troops.

The strikes are another sign that President Obama is continuing, and in some 
cases extending, Bush administration policy in using American spy agencies 
against terrorism suspects in Pakistan, as he had promised to do during his 
presidential campaign. At the same time, Mr. Obama has begun to scale back some 
of the Bush policies on the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects, 
which he has criticized as counterproductive.

Mr. Mehsud was identified early last year by both American and Pakistani 
officials as the man who had orchestrated the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, 
the former prime minister and the wife of Pakistan’s current president, Asif Ali 
Zardari. Mr. Bush included Mr. Mehsud’s name in a classified list of militant 
leaders whom the C.I.A. and American commandos were authorized to capture or kill.

It is unclear why the Obama administration decided to carry out the attacks, 
which American and Pakistani officials said occurred last Saturday and again on 
Monday, hitting camps run by Mr. Mehsud’s network. The Saturday strike was aimed 
specifically at Mr. Mehsud, but he was not killed, according to Pakistani and 
American officials.

The Monday strike, officials say, was aimed at a camp run by Hakeem Ullah 
Mehsud, a top aide to the militant. By striking at the Mehsud network, the 
United States may be seeking to demonstrate to Mr. Zardari that the new 
administration is willing to go after the insurgents of greatest concern to the 
Pakistani leader.

But American officials may also be prompted by growing concern that the militant 
attacks are increasingly putting the civilian government of Pakistan, a nation 
with nuclear weapons, at risk.

For months, Pakistani military and intelligence officials have complained about 
Washington’s refusal to strike at Baitullah Mehsud, even while C.I.A. drones 
struck at Qaeda figures and leaders of the network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a 
militant leader believed responsible for a campaign of violence against American 
troops in Afghanistan.

According to one senior Pakistani official, Pakistan’s intelligence service on 
two occasions in recent months gave the United States detailed intelligence 
about Mr. Mehsud’s whereabouts, but said the United States had not acted on the 
information. Bush administration officials had charged that it was the 
Pakistanis who were reluctant to take on Mr. Mehsud and his network.

The strikes came after a visit to Islamabad last week by Richard C. Holbrooke, 
the American envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In a telephone interview on Friday, Mr. Holbrooke declined to talk about the 
attacks on Mr. Mehsud. The White House also declined to speak about Mr. Mehsud 
or the decisions that led up to the new strikes. A C.I.A. spokesman also 
declined to comment.

Senior Pakistani officials are scheduled to arrive in Washington next week at a 
time of rising tension over a declared truce between the Pakistani government 
and militants in the Swat region.

While the administration has not publicly criticized the Pakistanis, several 
American officials said in interviews in recent days that they believe appeasing 
the militants would only weaken Pakistan’s civilian government. Mr. Holbrooke 
said in the interview that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others 
would make clear in private, and in detail, why they were so concerned about 
what was happening in Swat, the need to send more Pakistani forces to the west, 
and why the deteriorating situation in the tribal areas added to instability in 
Afghanistan and threats to American forces.

Past efforts to cut deals with the insurgents failed, and many administration 
officials believe that they ultimately weakened the Pakistani government.

But Obama administration officials face the same intractable problems that the 
Bush administration did in trying to prod Pakistan toward a different course. 
Pakistan still deploys the overwhelming majority of its troops along the Indian 
border, not the border with Afghanistan, and its intelligence agencies maintain 
shadowy links to the Taliban even as they take American funds to fight them.

Under standard policy for covert operations, the C.I.A. strikes inside Pakistan 
have not been publicly acknowledged either by the Obama administration or the 
Bush administration. Using Predators and the more heavily armed Reaper drones, 
the C.I.A. has carried out more than 30 strikes since last September, according 
to American and Pakistani officials.

The attacks have killed a number of senior Qaeda figures, including Abu Jihad 
al-Masri and Usama al-Kini, who is believed to have helped plan the 1998 
American Embassy bombings in East Africa and last year’s bombing of the Marriott 
Hotel in Islamabad.

American Special Operations troops based in Afghanistan have also carried out a 
number of operations into Pakistan’s tribal areas since early September, when a 
commando raid that killed a number of militants was publicly condemned by 
Pakistani officials. According to a senior American military official, the 
commando missions since September have been primarily to gather intelligence.

The meetings hosted by the Obama administration next week will include senior 
officials from both Pakistan and Afghanistan; Mrs. Clinton is to hold a rare 
joint meeting on Thursday with foreign ministers from the two countries. Also, 
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief, will meet with Defense 
Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff. Lt. Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan’s military spy 
service, will accompany General Kayani.

Bomber Kills More Than 30

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The police on Friday blamed a suicide bomber for a 
powerful explosion that killed more than 30 people and wounded at least 50 in 
the Pakistani city of Dera Ismail Khan, according to residents and Pakistani 
television reports.

The bombing, aimed at the funeral of a Shiite man who had been shot, set off 
chaos in the city of a million people on the edge of Pakistan’s tribal areas. 
Mobs attacked security forces, ransacked shops and surrounded hospitals said the 
mayor, Abdur Rauf.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/washington/21policy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th