Pakistan dismissed as speculation a US newspaper report yesterday that Washington was considering whether to expand its covert war in Pakistan beyond tribal areas on the Afghan border.
“We have seen the report. It appears to be speculative and we cannot comment on speculations,” Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said.
The New York Times reported that US President Barack Obama and his national security advisers were considering whether to strike the southwest province of Baluchistan, where it said Taliban leaders were orchestrating attacks into Afghanistan.
It quoted administration officials as saying that two high-level reports on Pakistan and Afghanistan sent to the White House have called for broadening the target area, to include a major insurgent sanctuary in and around the city of Quetta.
Mullah Muhammad Omar, who led the Taliban government ousted by the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, has operated with near impunity out of the region for years, along with many of his deputies, the newspaper said.
Suspected US missile strikes in Pakistan have so far been limited to the country’s lawless tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan and have never been extended to Baluchistan, which comes under central government authority.
Thirty-five such strikes have killed more than 340 people since last August.
Six have been blamed on unmanned US aircraft since Obama came to power, dashing Pakistani hopes that his administration would abandon the policy.
Islamabad protests that drone strikes violate its territorial sovereignty and warns of a domestic backlash in the nuclear-armed Islamic nation.
“On drone attacks, Pakistan’s general policy is that we think they are counter productive,” Basit said.
Some US officials say the missile strikes have forced some Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders to flee south towards Quetta, the New York Times reported.
Many Obama advisers also urge him to sustain orders issued last summer by then US president George W. Bush to continue drone attacks against a wider range of targets in the tribal areas, it said.
They also recommend preserving the option to conduct cross-border ground actions, using the CIA and special commandos, as was done in September, it said.
The New York Times quoted administration officials as saying that Predator and Reaper drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas have been effective in killing nine of al-Qaeda’s top 20 leaders.
The campaign was recently expanded to focus on Pakistan’s most wanted militant, Baitullah Mehsud, as well as his fighters and training camps.
Mehsud heads the much feared Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and is accused of plotting the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the wife of President Asif Ali Zardari.
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