Crosshairs on Pakistan

RASHMI SAKSENA DELHI

FOR WASHINGTON, THE conflict in Afghanistan has ceased to be "the other war". It has come full circle as the theatre of the war against terror. But this time, there is a crucial difference in the US approach. It has declared its intent to strike at the source of the threat.
The car bomb blast at the gate of the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7 was the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. It was also a grim wake up call for the international community, which has chosen to ignore the ever-increasing threat to global security from religious extremists who have found a safe haven in tracts of Pakistan.
"We will be taking a bigger role in security matters and in this context the US sees a challenge in some areas that are in Pakistan," informed a source in the US establishment. So far the US interest in these areas of Pakistan has been confined to the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership. Today, the US' counterterrorism challenge lies in a portion of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) at the centre of the 1,640 miles of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border as well as parts of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan to the west and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to the east and south is where the Taliban and several other militant groups exporting jihad have reportedly found sanctuary after October 2001.
Short of landing on Pakistan territory without an invitation, Washington appears to be all set to use diplomacy, exert pressure of an old relationship combined with fire power to flush out and finish the threat to global security emanating from Pakistani territory. Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly accused Pakistan of secretly aiding the Taliban and other religious militia. In June he even threatened to send troops across the border to attack militants if Pakistan did not do so. Sources reveal that the Afghan president has made it clear to the US that it is only the White House alone that can put pressure on Islamabad to come down heavily on the Taliban and al-Qaida leaders who have taken refuge in the Pashtun dominated areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border and FATA. The US establishment sources agree that "now there is a realisation that certain elements in Pakistan give covert backing to extremists who scuttle peace efforts in Afghanistan".
Sources indicate that this turnaround follows an increased threat perception to US interests. The February 27, 2007 attack on the US air base in Afghanistan during a visit by US Vice President Dick Cheney by a resurgent Taliban was psychologically a serious blow to Washington.
The suicide attack on the Indian embassy also added a punch to the US' new resolve to deal with the source of terrorism, even if it lies in a country it has been cosy with because of strategic compulsions. President Hamid Karzai has held Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, responsible for the bombing. India's national security advisor MK Narayanan has aggressively declared that ISI be "destroyed". During the fifth round of the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan, held in July in New Delhi, India raised the issue of the blast at its mission in Kabul and pointed a finger at elements in Pakistan. This has understandably not gone down well with Islamabad, which, as expected, demands proof.
Since mid-2007, there has been a drift in the relations between Washington and Islamabad, arisen out of the increasing US perception that Pakistan has not been able to cut off refuge for the Taliban and other jihadi factions in FATA. US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, on his maiden visit to Kabul in July indicated that he wants to see the US war against terrorism played out from Afghanistan. He would like to see 7,000 additional troops there to counter the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents. Last August, Obama had gone to the extent of saying that he was open to ordering military strikes into Pakistan against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.