Frustrated with frequent attacks on Americans in Afghanistan, the US military and intelligence officials are considering launching secret joint US-Afghan commando raids into Pakistan to hunt down the militants.
According to media reports, the idea has been consistently rejected because the White House believes the chance of successfully rooting out the deadly Haqqani network would not be worth the intense diplomatic blowback from Pakistan that inevitably would ensue.
Members of the Haqqani tribe have been targeted by pilotless US drone aircraft, but sending American and Afghan troops into Pakistan would be a serious escalation of the hunt for terrorists and potentially the final straw for Pakistan, already angered over what it sees as US violations of its sovereignty. The latest round of debate over whether to launch clandestine special operations raids into Pakistan against the Haqqanis came after the June 1 car bombing of Forward Operating Base Salerno in eastern Afghanistan that injured up to 100 US and Afghan soldiers, according to three current and two former US officials who were briefed on the discussions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the still-evolving debates.
The officials told the Associated Press that recent discussions of clandestine ground attacks have included General John Allen, the senior US commander in Afghanistan, as well as top CIA and special operations officials. Allen’s spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Brook DeWalt, said Allen “has not and does not intend to push for a cross-border operation.” The White House and the CIA declined to comment for this story. Pentagon spokesman George Little said the US was still focused on US-Pakistan cooperation.
“The key is to work together with Pakistan to find ways of fighting terrorists who threaten both the United States and Pakistan, including along the Afghan-Pakistan border, where extremists continue to plot attacks against coalition forces and innocent civilians,” he said. The officials say Allen expressed frustration that militants would attack and then flee across the border in Pakistan, immediately taking shelter in urban areas where attacking them by missile fire could kill civilians. The officials say options that have been prepared for President Barack Obama’s review included raids that could be carried out by US special operations forces together with Afghan commandos, ranging from air assaults that drop raiders deep inside the tribal areas to hit top leaders to shorter dashes only a few miles into Pakistan territory.
The shorter raids would not necessarily be covert, as they could be carried out following the US military principle known as “hot pursuit” that military officials say entitles their forces to pursue a target that attacks them in Afghanistan up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) inside a neighboring country’s territory.
US ‘mulls’ new covert raids in Pakistan
