A senior US military official has acknowledged that US forces conducted a raid inside Pakistan, in the first known foreign ground assault in the country against a suspected Taliban haven.
The Pakistan government condemned an incursion that it said killed at least 15 people.
The US official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of cross border operations, said the raid occurred on Pakistani soil about one mile from the Afghan border. The official didn’t provide any other details.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry protested saying US-led troops flew in from Afghanistan for the attack on a village in the country’s wild tribal belt. A Pakistani army spokesman warned that the apparent escalation from recent foreign missile strikes on militant targets along the Afghan border would further anger Pakistanis and undercut cooperation in the war against terrorist groups.
The boldness of the thrust fed speculation about the intended target. But it was unclear whether any extremist leader was killed or captured in the operation, which occurred in one of the militant strongholds dotting a frontier region considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.
US military and civilian officials declined to respond directly to Pakistan’s complaints. But one official, a South Asia expert who agreed to discuss the situation only if not quoted by name, suggested the target of any raid like that reported on Wednesday would have to be extremely important to risk an almost assured “big backlash” from Pakistan.
“You have to consider that something like this will be a more-or-less once-off opportunity for which we will have to pay a price in terms of Pakistani cooperation,” the official said.
Suspected US missile attacks killed at least two al-Qaeda commanders this year in the same region, drawing protests from Pakistan’s government that its sovereignty was under attack. US officials did not acknowledge any involvement in those attacks.
But US commanders have been complaining publicly that Pakistan puts too little pressure on militant groups that are blamed for mounting violence in Afghanistan, stirring speculation that US forces might lash out across the frontier.
Some administration officials have been pressing US President George W. Bush to direct US troops in Afghanistan to be more aggressive in pursuing militants into Pakistan on foot as part of a proposed radical shift in regional counterterrorism strategy, reporters learned. The debate was the subject of a late July meeting at the White House of some of Bush’s top national security advisers.
The circumstances surrounding Wednesday’s raid weren’t clear, but US rules of engagement allow US troops to pursue militants across the border into Pakistan when they are attacked.
However, Pakistan army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said hot pursuit wasn’t an issue, adding that the attack “was completely unprovoked.”
He said Pakistani troops were near the village and saw and heard nothing to suggest the US forces were pursuing insurgents.
The raid comes at a particularly sensitive time for the Pakistani government, which is trying to overcome political divisions and choose a new president on the one hand, while the army is battling militants on the other hand.
Pakistani officials said they were lodging strong protests with the US government and its military representative in Islamabad about Wednesday’s raid in the South Waziristan area, a notorious hotbed of militant activity.
The Foreign Ministry called the strike “a gross violation of Pakistan’s territory,” saying it could “undermine the very basis of cooperation and may fuel the fire of hatred and violence that we are trying to extinguish.”
Prior to US military confirmation of the raid, Pakistan government and military officials had insisted that either the NATO force or the US-led coalition in Afghanistan — both commanded by US generals — were responsible. A spokesman for NATO troops in Afghanistan denied any involvement.
Abbas, the Pakistani army spokesman, said the attack was the first incursion onto Pakistani soil by troops from the foreign forces that ousted Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 attack on the US.
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