NATO steps up Taliban attacks along Pakistan-Afghanistan border

Increased strikes are causing friction between the US and Pakistani
government, which prefers to negotiate with the militants

By David Montero
posted June 24, 2008 at 10:32 am EDT

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0624/p99s01-duts.html

In the latest incident to spell trouble on Pakistan’s border with
Afghanistan, suspected Taliban militants attacked check posts,
kidnapped Pakistani policemen, and blew up oil tankers destined for US
and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Tuesday.


In retaliation, NATO forces are stepping up attacks inside Pakistan,
causing friction with Pakistan's new government, which hopes to
negotiate peace with the militants.

For more than a year, Taliban militants have regrouped along
Pakistan's border region, where the Pakistani state's presence is
weak, and used it as a staging ground to launch attacks against both
US and allied troops in Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan's government.
Tuesday's violence was the latest in a series to target that border,
reports Agence France-Presse.

Suspected Taliban rebels kidnapped 17 tribal policemen near Pakistan's
Khyber pass, police said Monday, the latest incident on the main
supply route for international forces in Afghanistan.

Armed men attacked four checkposts on Sunday in the troubled region,
where militants blew up 36 tankers bringing fuel for US and NATO
troops across the border in March, wounding 100 people.

The security of the route has been under scrutiny since the US-led
coalition reported that four helicopter engines worth 13 million
dollars had gone missing in April while being transported by a
Pakistani haulage firm.

Pakistan's leading English-language newspaper, Dawn, adds:

The 35km-long Peshawar-Torkham highway, the main supply route for
international forces in Afghanistan, has become insecure after the
kidnapping of Pakistan's Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin,
his driver and guard on Feb 11.

Several militant groups have intensified their patrolling of the route
and last week they threatened to disrupt oil and aid supplies to NATO
forces in Afghanistan.

Forty-two tankers carrying fuel for US and NATO forces were blown up
near Torkham on March 23, two World Food Programme officials were
kidnapped on April 21 and an army vehicle was targeted with a remote-
controlled bomb on May 20.

The escalating violence has prompted US-led coalition forces to step
up attacks along Pakistan's border, and even inside Pakistani
territory, The New York Times reports.

NATO forces in Afghanistan shelled guerrillas in Pakistan in two
separate episodes on Sunday, as escalating insurgent violence appeared
to be eroding the alliance's restraint along the border....

The firing by NATO forces into Pakistani territory followed an
American airstrike on a Pakistani border post earlier this month that
killed 11 Pakistani soldiers. The Pakistani government denounced the
strike, and the American government expressed regret, but it is still
not entirely clear what happened.

The latest NATO strike to occur on Afghan soil on Tuesday also
implicates Pakistan. The strike, which occurred in the eastern
province of Paktia, near the border with Pakistan, killed 15
militants, allegedly including Pakistani nationals, reports Agence
France-Presse.

Insurgents opened fire on the headquarters of the province's Sayed
Karam district but were driven away after a gunbattle which caused
slight damage to the building, provincial government spokesman
Rohullah Samoon said.

"NATO helicopters then bombed the militants and killed 14 militants on
the spot. Our policemen arrested another four wounded, and one of the
wounded also died in hospital," Samoon told AFP....

"The three arrested terrorists have told police that most of the 15
Taliban killed in the air strike were Pakistani nationals and some of
them from Arab countries," he said.

The New York Times adds that NATO is increasingly concerned about the
Taliban's ability to use Pakistan as a staging ground for attacks.

American and Afghan officials say the surging violence in Afghanistan
is in large part caused by the sanctuaries that militants enjoy in
Pakistan. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, have assembled in Pakistan,
most of them in the area along the remote and mountainous frontier
where the government exercises no authority.


NATO's controversial attacks come as Pakistan's new government, since
taking office in February, has struggled to negotiate a series of
peace deals with the Taliban rather than fight them.

An opinion piece in the Pakistani daily The News suggests that local
observers now worry that the US administration and Pakistan's new
government no longer agree on the best approach for tackling Taliban
presence in the region.

The cracks in the relationship are beginning to show, now more than
ever. It is becoming increasingly apparent that America and Pakistan
are failing to see eye to eye on many critical strategic matters on
how to conduct this war.

While Pakistan is increasingly proffering reasons to choose dialogue
over military operation in dealing with the militants, America, with
its fetish for warfare, seems to have stepped up its military
operations, to the point where it matters little if in the process it
is overriding the sovereignty of its most important ally, or even
killing its people.

Observers from afar are also counseling Washington to allow Pakistan's
new government to steer its own course in tackling militancy. An
editorial this week in Lebanon's leading English language daily, The
Daily Star, admonishes:

It is critical for the US to recognize that the priority of the
Pakistani government should be to first bring peace and stability
within its own borders. If the new leadership is seen to place the
interests of the United States before its own, it will experience the
same legitimacy problems President Pervez Musharraf faced. This will
undermine Pakistan's democratic transition, creating instability in
the country and the region.

If negotiations fail because of militant uprisings, Pakistanis will
support the use of force knowing all other channels were exhausted.
This will lead to greater public ownership of the fight against
extremism, something the United States has called for. COURTESY
CSMONITOR.
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