Washington, Sept 11: US President George W Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow US Special Operations forces to carry out ground attacks in Pakistan without prior permission of that country’s government. A former intelligence official with recent access to the Bush administration's debate about how to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban inside the lawless tribal border area revealed details that indicate the US’ growing frustration with terror attacks in Afghanistan, emanating from Pakistan.
The former official spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity to describe the classified order.
A senior US military official last week also confirmed that a special forces attack had taken place about a mile across Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because the internal debate over the US response to rising violence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border includes discussion of classified intelligence.
"The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable," a senior American official told the paper on condition of anonymity. "We have to be more assertive. Orders have been issued."
The former official told agencies that Bush signed an order over the summer giving new authority to US special operations forces to target suspected terrorists in the dangerous area along the Afghanistan border. More recently, the administration secretly gave conventional ground troops new authority to pursue militants across the Afghan border into Pakistan, the former official said.
The "rules of engagement" have been loosened, allowing troops to conduct border attacks without being fired on first if they witness attacks coming from the region, the former official said. That would include artillery, rockets and mortar fire from the Pakistan side of the border.
The new authority allowed last week's unprecedented US-led ground assault into the volatile region known as the tribal areas. The US forces were apparently seeking specific Taliban or al-Qaida leaders. The senior US military official said the assault targeted "individuals who were clearly associated with attacks on US forces in Afghanistan."
The Pakistani government is not told about the targets in advance because of concerns that the Pakistani intelligence service and military are infiltrated by al-Qaida and Taliban supporters who would leak the information, the former official said.
The Sept 4 raid left at least 15 people dead, and embarrassed Pakistan's new civilian-led government. Pakistani officials have also said US forces were involved.
Bush's decision to endorse cross-border attacks from Afghanistan without alerting Islamabad leaves Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari with a major foreign policy challenge. Zardari and other politicians have called the cross-border attacks unacceptable and a violation of their country's sovereignty.
Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took things a step further Wednesday, when he said Pakistan's territorial integrity would be "defended at all cost.'
"Reckless actions" which kill civilians "only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area," Kayani said, reflecting the views of many Pakistanis.
US frustrated
At the crux of the dispute are militant havens that have grown on Pakistan's side of the border at the same time that a resurgent Taliban has been increasing its attacks inside Afghanistan, leading Bush to commit Wednesday to sending more troops there. Washington wants Pakistan to do more to crack down on its side of the border.
"Until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. "Frankly, we are running out of time."
Pakistan's inability or unwillingness to mount a counterinsurgency campaign inside the tribal area was discussed at a National Security Council meeting held this week, according to notes of the meeting provided to agencies. The notes said Pakistan is still focused on fighting India and is "still denying the counterinsurgency problem."
The newspaper also reports that CIA believes that ISI aided bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in July and that even Gen Kayani was aware of the attack.
Top US and Pakistani military officials conducted a secret strategy session in August on an aircraft carrier off Pakistan to discuss the problem.
The arrangement is deliberately ambiguous. While the Pakistan government is left in the dark, it also does not want the United States government announcing that operations were undertaken without Islamabad's approval.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to comment on the matter Thursday but said the US, Pakistan and the rest of the world share an interest in cracking down on militants along the Pakistani-Afghan border.
Bureau Report