WASHINGTON: The White House has informed Congress that there’s “no clear path toward defeating the insurgency” in Pakistan, despite the unprecedented and sustained deployment of over 147,000 Pakistani troops.
But in the same report – sent to the US Congress on Tuesday – the White House also takes credit for weakening Al Qaeda with Pakistan’s cooperation.
“Specific components of the strategy, taken individually, indicate we are headed in the right direction, both in terms of US focus and Pakistani cooperation. However, better balance and integration of the various components of our strategy will be required to reach our objectives,” the White House said.
“For instance, the denial of extremist safe havens will require greater cooperation with Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan. Furthermore, the denial of extremist safe havens cannot be achieved through military means alone, but must continue to be advanced by effective development strategies.”
The self-contradictory nature of the report gave Pakistan bashers in the US capital a field day to attack Pakistan as an ‘untrustworthy’ ally while some commentators even urged the Obama administration to sever its ties with Pakistan.
But as diplomatic observers pointed out, the same report could also be used to show that Pakistan was doing its best to combat extremists and Washington appreciates its sacrifices.
“We worked jointly in the last year to disrupt the threat posed by Al Qaeda, and Pakistan has made progress against extremist safe havens, taking action in six of seven agencies of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA),” the report said.
“These gains came at great cost, as Pakistan has endured thousands of casualties in their military ranks and among their civilian population from terrorist attacks,” the report acknowledged.
“There was improvement in our security assistance, with increased training cooperation, more support for Pakistan’s military operations, and greater border coordination.”
The twice-annual report on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan also expressed concern over Pakistan’s failure to sustain counter-insurgency operations in Fata, noting that Pakistani forces have had to conduct three major operations in Mohmand agency in the last two years.
The unclassified report, however, made no explicit calls for another operation, in North Waziristan, as the US had previously demanded. Despite depicting a grim picture of the situation in Fata, the report conceded that “Al Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan is weaker and under more sustained pressure than at any other point since it fled Afghanistan in 2001”. The White House National Security staff, which prepared the report, heralded this as “the most important success” in President Obama’s Af-Pak strategy.
Then it said that al-Qaeda could not be defeated until there’s a “sustained denial of the group’s safe haven in the tribal areas of western Pakistan”.
This report also had the usual mantra that accompanies all US reports on Pakistan: more progress is needed to “eliminate sanctuaries for violent extremist networks” in the country.
The report regretted that because of lack of a sustained strategy to “hold and build” in areas retrieved from the militants, Pakistan failed to achieve the required results.
Neither the White House nor the US media reports on the White House assessment mentioned that Pakistan used the same argument while refusing to accept the US demand for launching yet another major operation in Fata. The official report also emphasised the need to introduce credible law-enforcement forces in Fata.
The report noted that an operation in Mohmand agency in January, underscored serious shortfalls in the Pakistani army’s counter-insurgency capability.
“The third time in the past two years the army has had to conduct major clearing operations in the same agency,” the report said. That’s “a clear indicator of the inability of the Pakistani military and government to render cleared areas resistant to insurgent return”, it added.
The operation also showed that Pakistan’s fleet of military helicopters “remains beset by low operational readiness rates exacerbated by Pakistani reluctance to accept US-provided helicopter maintenance teams”, it continued.
While the operation was to have been completed “in a few weeks”, it has been extended into this month, the report said. “Adverse weather, underestimated militant resistance, resettlement of internally displaced persons . . . and the discovery of several large caches of improvised explosive devices have all hampered ongoing operations.”
A portion of the report that deal with the quarter ending in September, accused Pakistan of avoiding “military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or Al Qaeda forces in North Waziristan”, and said “this is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritising its targets”.
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