Pakistan’s military will not take action against a militant group Washington blames for an attack against its embassy in Kabul, despite mounting US pressure to do so, a Pakistani newspaper reported yesterday.
Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani met with his top commanders on Sunday in a “special” meeting to discuss the security situation, the military said, as the war of words with the US escalated.
That emergency meeting came against the backdrop of sharp US allegations that the Pakistani army’s powerful spy agency supported the Haqqani militant group Washington blames for the recent attack on its embassy and other targets in Kabul.
The commanders agreed to resist US demands for a Pakistani army offensive in North Waziristan, where the US believes the Haqqani network is based, the Express Tribune reported, quoting an unnamed military official.
“We have already conveyed to the US that Pakistan cannot go beyond what it has already done,” the official told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.
The US has long pressed its ally Pakistan to pursue the Haqqani network, one of the most lethal Taliban-allied Afghan groups fighting Western forces in Afghanistan.
Pakistan denies it supports the Haqqanis and says its army is too stretched battling its own Taliban insurgency to go after the network, which has an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 fighters.
Analysts say the Pakistani military could suffer heavy casualties if it were to attempt a crackdown on the group, which has developed extensive alliances with other militant organizations in the region and has mastered the rugged mountain terrain.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, who heads the group, says it no longer needs sanctuaries in Pakistan and it feels safe operating in Afghanistan.
Two weeks ago, militants launched an assault against the US embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul. US officials blamed those attacks on the Haqqani network.
US officials said there was intelligence, including intercepted telephone calls, suggesting those attackers were in communication with people connected to Pakistan’s principal spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.
In the most blunt remarks by a US official since Pakistan joined the US-led war on militancy in 2001, outgoing US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen on Thursday testified before the US Senate that the Haqqani militant network is a “veritable arm” of the ISI.
He also for the first time held Islamabad responsible for the Kabul attack, saying Pakistan provided support for that assault.
Meanwhile, in Washington, a Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee said on Sunday that the US should consider military action against Pakistan if it continues to support terrorist attacks against US troops in Afghanistan.
“The sovereign nation of Pakistan is engaging in hostile acts against the United States and our ally Afghanistan that must cease,” US Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News Sunday.
He said if experts decided that the US needs to “elevate its response,” he was confident there would be strong bipartisan support in the US Congress for such action.
Graham did not call for military action, but said “all options” should be considered.
He said assistance to Pakistan should be reconfigured and that the US should no longer designate an amount of aid for Pakistan, but have a more “transactional relationship” with the country.
“They’re killing American soldiers,” he said. “If they continue to embrace terrorism as a part of their national strategy, we’re going to have to put all options on the table, including defending our troops.”
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