America has released its Annual Review of Afghanistan and Pakistan Strategy with core goal of the strategy to disrupt, dismantle and eventually defeat Al Qaeda in the region and prevent its return to either country. While the strategy remains relentlessly focused on Pakistan-based Al Qaeda, specifically the core goal and generally the summary of this review, it generates some rational queries and arguments on this review of Pak-Afghan strategy.
Question arises why the strategy is mainly focused on Pakistan-based Al Qaeda? As on Pakistans side there are over 900 posts covering majority of natural laterals, whereas on the Afghanistan side there are only 150 or so posts which are usually frequently readjusted rearwards. Pakistan has initiated military operations in all the six out of seven agencies and areas adjoining Afghanistan and there is a huge number of Pakistan military (around 140,000) deployed along the border. The major deployment is in North Waziristan where operations are in process. It is actually Afghanistan that has failed to stop cross border movement of miscreants which is destabilising adjoining border areas of Pakistan.
Furthermore, the US has said that we are confronting the inherent challenges of a war-torn nation working to restore basic stability and security in the face of a resilient insurgency that finds shelter in a neighbouring sanctuary. The question arises how they can travel under the hi-tech satellite-run sensitive surveillance gadgets when the miscreants who succeed in sneaking into the other side need to travel more than 60 kilometres inside Afghanistan to reach their targets.
Moreover, when all these flaws are found in the US strategy, then why senior US military commanders in Afghanistan are seeking to expand ground raids into Pakistans territory? Waziristan is not Pakistans Achilles heel. It is very much part of Pakistan and figures well in its national counter terrorism strategy. The proposal would escalate military activities inside Pakistan and will increase frustration and terrorism in the area.
SYEDA ASHA
Islamabad
