The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Plans for a U.S.-led offensive along the Afghan-Pakistani border call for the Pakistani military and U.S. special forces to sweep through villages and mountain passes in western Pakistan, flushing out fugitive al-Qaida and Taliban fighters and driving them toward U.S. and allied forces waiting across the border, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.
The official said that the operation, which was developed jointly by U.S. and Pakistani military planners, is still in its early stages. "The Pakistanis are preparing to move," he said.
U.S. and Afghan officials have acknowledged this week that a major military operation was being set in motion against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters believed to be hiding in western Pakistan. Driven from Afghanistan late last year by U.S. and allied forces, large contingents of the two radical Islamic groups are said to have taken refuge in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas, though some of their forces remain in Afghanistan as well.
"There really are pockets on both sides of the border that have to be dealt with," the official said.
The U.S. Army already has flown Apache attack helicopters to a forward operating base near the eastern Afghan town of Khost and has begun ferrying infantry troops from the 101st Airborne Division into the area to support the British Marines and U.S. special forces troops already positioned there. Defense officials said as many as 1,000 U.S. troops ultimately could be involved in the fight.
The concept of the cross-border operation reflects lessons U.S. military strategists believe they learned at two earlier battles in eastern Afghanistan, at Tora Bora in December and at Shah-e-Kot in March. The new plan relies little on Afghan militias, whose faltering performance disappointed U.S. allies in both engagements.
Instead, it leans heavily on the Pakistani military, which has consistently pleased the U.S. military with its ability to execute missions along the border. U.S. military officials privately credit the Pakistanis with apprehending about half the 300 suspected members of al-Qaida and Taliban now detained at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In a possible sign that al-Qaida fighters inside Pakistan are reacting to the mounting pressure on them, a rocket was fired before dawn Wednesday at a building in the border village of Miram Shah where American personnel were asleep, a local Pakistani official said. The rocket damaged an adjacent building but did not inflict any casualties, he added.
A spokesman for the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Afghan war, said he had no information on the rocket attack. U.S. officials generally are reluctant to publicly discuss U.S. operations inside Pakistan, but some have said privately that U.S. soldiers are participating in reconnaissance and other offensive operations inside that country.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
