LAHORE
The top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan has said that there will be more coordinated military operations on either side of the border with Pakistan and praised the country for its “impressive” counterinsurgency efforts, according to the Washinton Post.
Gen David Petraeus, who took over command of coalition troops in Afghanistan in July, said there had already been coordinated operations on both sides of the border, with Pakistani forces on one side and NATO and Afghan troops on the other squeezing the militants between them.
“We want to do more hammer and anvil operations,” Petraeus said late on Saturday in an interview aboard a military transport aircraft, as he flew around the country on Christmas visits to bases and combat outposts dotted across north, west, south and east Afghanistan.
Pakistan recognised “the need to do more to solidify their gains in the Tribal Areas, and we are going to coordinate with them to help their operations”, he said. But the general insisted that Pakistan’s efforts at combating various militant groups active in the country must be commended.
“We have to be very clear in recognising what Pakistan has done over the course of the last 22 months, which is quite considerable. They’ve conducted impressive counterinsurgency operations” in several regions, including the Swat Valley, the North West Frontier Province and the tribal regions, Petraeus said.
“And they have sustained significant military losses and civilian losses during the course of that time.” Petraeus insisted that the gains already made must be solidified before Pakistan expanded its operations to other areas – such as the troubled North Waziristan. “They are the first to recognise that there are groups in there that have to be dealt with over time,” he said.
“But … they’ve got quite a few short sticks and hornets’ nests already, and rule Number 1 of a military operation is don’t start something you can’t finish. And they recognise the need to finish some of the operations they’ve already conducted before launching significant new ones.”
