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アフガン国境に接するバキスタン内部の空爆と限定的地上部隊の展開か、パキスタンは自ら行動する意外に選択はない、識者語る。
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\07\21\story_21-7-2008_pg7_27
Reuters
July 20, 2008
US playing for high stakes on Pak-Afghan border
* Analyst says Bush could authorise air strikes,
ground operations in tribal belt
* Obama vows to eliminate terror targets inside
Pakistan
-US Congressional hearings, the media and think tanks
were generating the kind of hype that could persuade
President George W Bush to authorise an
intensification of air strikes and even limited ground
operations in the tribal belt.
-An American incursion would be a call to arms for
tribesmen, who had till now shunned the insurgency
based in the ethnic Pashtun tribal belt straddling the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border....
PESHAWAR - Former United States defence secretary
Donald Rumsfeld might not have been shy about
projecting US military power, but even he did not dare
send American troops into Pakistan’s Tribal Areas to
snatch or kill Al Qaeda leaders.
But now, it is feared that the US presidential
campaign has heated up foreign policy debate over how
to handle the Taliban and Al Qaeda threat to a point
where American leaders could throw caution to the wind
by taking unilateral action.
“If such an action was a possibility in the past, it
is a high possibility now,” said a senior security
official, requesting anonymity, in Peshawar.
In 2005, Rumsfeld reportedly aborted a mission to
eliminate Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s
second-in-command, because it involved too many troops
with uncertain chances of success and the danger of
riling the situation in Pakistan.
The risks today may be even greater, with the country
going through a precarious transition to civilian-led
democracy and tribesmen across the northwest taking up
arms. “If Americans hit the Pakistani side, they will
make more enemies,” said Ayaz Wazir, a former
Pakistani ambassador to Kabul.
....
The United States is now piling resources into
Afghanistan, where the Taliban insurgency is stronger
than ever. With Western forces pressing into areas
where the militants had once ranged, there have been
more encounters, more casualties and more talk of
ordering “hot pursuit” into Pakistani territory.
Increased air strikes
Talat Masood, a former general turned political
analyst, said US Congressional hearings, the media and
think tanks were generating the kind of hype that
could persuade President George W Bush to authorise an
intensification of air strikes and even limited ground
operations in the tribal belt. “Pakistan must take
action on its own. It is left with no other option,”
Masood told reporters.
An American incursion would be a call to arms for
tribesmen, who had till now shunned the insurgency
based in the ethnic Pashtun tribal belt straddling the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and undermine the
coalition government.
“Anti-American sentiments will rise exponentially,”
said Masood, adding, “The civilian government will
destabilise and moderate forces will further be
marginalised.”
In the past week, US impatience has been very evident.
There is a perception that the Pakistan Army has
reduced pressure on Taliban groups in the border areas
as the new government tries to persuade tribal elders
to talk to the militants to end their war.
Bush has said he is “troubled” by Al Qaeda’s presence
in Pakistan and will discuss the matter with Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani when they meet in
Washington on July 28.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael
Mullen also spoke of greater numbers of insurgents and
foreign fighters crossing from Pakistan “unmolested
and unhindered” and warned, “This movement has to
stop”.
Rumsfeld’s successor, Defence Secretary Robert Gates,
repeated that US troops were “ready, willing and able”
to help if the Pakistani government asks, but added
that there was “a real need to do something on the
Pakistani side of the border”.
Obama
But the sense of trepidation in Pakistan that the
United States might dispense with diplomatic niceties
was reinforced by Democrat presidential candidate
Barack Obama’s remarks.
“We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as
president, I will certainly not,” said Obama in a
major foreign policy speech, adding, “We must make it
clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will
take out high-level terror targets like Osama Bin
Laden if we have them in our sights.”
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