As Pakistan and the United States try to revise their ‘terms of engagement’ on counter-terrorism cooperation, some features of the ‘plan’ being devised, indicate that Islamabad wants the ‘drone boxes’ or areas where CIA could go for lethal predator strikes in the Tribal Areas, to be re-identified with new ones being very narrow and also that any future attacks are to be carried in accordance with intelligence information provided by Pakistani side. The relations between Pakistan and the US are at the lowest ebb in the wake of NATO airstrikes on two Pakistan outposts in Mohmand Agency on November 26 in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed.
Pakistan suspended the NATO supplies after the NATO strikes, vacated ‘Shamsi airbase’ in Balochistan, which was earlier used for drone strikes and boycotted an international moot on peace and security in Afghanistan, ‘Bonn Conference’.
The US also retaliated by announcing to freeze millions of dollars in aid for Pakistan and it was on Saturday that President Barack Obama signed a sweeping US defence funding bill, which includes curtailing up to $850 million in aid to Pakistan.
The massive defence bill that Congress passed on earlier in December freezes 60 percent of the $850 million aid or $510 million, until the US defence secretary provides lawmakers with assurances that Pakistan is working to counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs). “As of now both the countries are discussing different measures how to break the impasse in their relations and bring a semblance of normalcy to their ties. Islamabad and Washington are engaged in efforts to revise the ‘terms of engagement’ and for that they are trying to come up with a mutually acceptable ‘plan’,” said a diplomatic source on Sunday seeking anonymity.
He said one important feature of the proposed plan was to narrow down the areas in the Tribal Areas for drone strikes called ‘boxes’, where the terrorists are concentrated or it was strongly felt so. The US has also put on hold the drone strikes in the Tribal Areas after Mohmand Agency’s strikes.
“If agreed upon, both sides could go for re-identification of very narrow boxes for drone strikes. However, these strikes ought to be very rare, when they are extremely needed and that too in accordance with Pakistani intelligence information about the targets and not by the US on its own,” the source said.
A Pakistani security official expressed his ignorance about the proposed plan for ‘boxes’ and other terms of engagement but he said Pakistan had taken certain important measures in the previous year against the US and especially against the American security people present on its soil.
He said the number of US military officers, which included the enlisted troops and contractors in Pakistan, had dropped to around 100 from over 400.
Moreover, he said Pakistan had also limited the number of visas for the US embassy staff and aid workers, adding that “this measure is aimed basically at the CIA operatives in Pakistan, to reduce their number to the lowest possible level”.