| US appears split over missile strikes in Balochistan |
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Thursday, April 30, 2009
WASHINGTON: The Obama administration appears divided over whether CIA missile strikes should be used against Taliban safe havens across the border in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province.
Like Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas, Balochistan and its provincial capital Quetta provide a safe haven for Islamist militants intent on carrying out cross-border attacks against Afghan government and NATO targets, US officials say.
“You find the same sort of leadership, medical support, logistics, personnel, recruitment, training,” said a senior defense official, one of half a dozen US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
What to do about Balochistan is a question facing US Policy makers now that President Obama has opted to more than double the number of US forces in Afghanistan this year to 68,000 troops. That includes 12,000 Marine and Army combat forces expected there by summer.
Experts and officials say the administration may have less leverage in Baluchistan than in the FATA. Unlike al Qaeda and the other Fata-based groups, they say, Pakistan does not recognise the Afghan Taliban as a security threat and may fear that action against them would stir trouble with Baluchi separatists who have long opposed Islamabad.
The question has also sown division over the high-stakes tactic of using CIA missile strikes to degrade the Taliban leadership, officials say, with newer Obama appointees taking a hard look at the potential ramifications for Balochistan. Some Pentagon officials are also reluctant to embrace the idea.
Some in the administration favor attacking Taliban leaders with missile strikes from pilotless CIA drones, saying the tactic has eliminated militant leaders and disrupted planning for cross-border attacks in the Fata.
But others fear missile attacks in Balochistan could cause a destabilising backlash for Pakistan’s fragile civilian government at a time when social and economic turmoil is fueling religious extremism across the country.
Officials say the main concern is that Taliban leaders are believed living in populated areas among an estimated 120,000 Afghans, including many prospective militant recruits whose families have lived in Baluchistan since the Soviet era.-Reuters |
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