Govt plans operation in NWA, targeting terrorist groups

WASHINGTON

The government is on the verge of launching a major military offensive in North Waziristan Agency after brutal Taliban attacks in recent weeks and the apparent failure of peace talks with terrorists, according to a senior Pakistani official.
“It could be any day,” said the official, adding that military plans have been shared with top US officials, who have long urged an offensive.
Planning for the operation comes amid a Pakistan-requested pause in US drone strikes that is entering its third month — the longest period without such an attack in more than two years — and high-level bilateral meetings.
Pakistan’s defence secretary, Asif Yasin Malik, is heading a delegation of security officials in Washington. CIA Director John Brennan quietly visited Pakistan last week, days after Gen Lloyd J Austin III, head of the US Central Command, held meetings at military headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s national security adviser said cabinet-level consultations on the military option will take place this week. “Dialogue with the Taliban has derailed, and the writ of the state will be established in the region,” Sartaj Aziz had told reporters on Monday in Islamabad.
With 150,000 troops already based in the tribal regions, the senior official said the government was prepared to begin a full-fledged clearing operation. “We really don’t have to start from scratch,” the official said.
He said an official evacuation had yet to begin but noted that tens of thousands of residents, who he said were “spooked” by reports of an imminent government attack, had left on their own.
US officials, while hailing the current level of cooperation and saying that they are encouraged by Pakistan’s apparent determination, noted that they have been frequently disappointed in the past.
“We’ll believe it when we see it,” said one US official, who like other American and Pakistani officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic contacts and military plans.
“We’re not doing it for their [US] happiness,” the Pakistani official said. Instead, he said, the execution last week of 23 Pakistani soldiers held by the Taliban since 2010, along with several recent attacks, including one that killed 19 at a Karachi police station, have turned public opinion against the terrorists and the sputtering peace talks. That has opened new political space for military action.

POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR ACTION:
In statements on Monday, the Pakistan People’s Party said it supported a military offensive. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan indicated that military action was inevitable.
“Talks would have still been a better option,” he said, but he called on the government to “take political ownership of any military operation” and fully inform the nation.
He called for the government to begin evacuating civilians from NWA before starting a bombardment of the area, as it did before major military offensives in the Swat region in 2009 and in South Waziristan in 2010.
The banned terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is separate from the Afghan Taliban. Elements of both, along with the Haqqani network and remnants of al Qaeda’s core leadership, are located in NWA.
Peace talks were proposed early last fall by Nawaz. Those talks were cancelled when a US drone strike in November killed TTP top terrorist Hakimullah Mehsud. The action led to one of the frequent downturns in US-Pakistani relations, as Nawaz Sharif’s government accused the Obama administration of trying to undermine negotiations.
In late December, as it prepared to relaunch the talks, Islamabad asked Washington to hold off on further drone attacks and made clear that it was prepared to begin a military offensive if negotiations with the terrorists did not succeed.
The Pakistani official cautioned that the government has not formally declared the talks a failure and said “it’s politically important for the government to take this to its logical conclusion”.
At least one round of talks had taken place, with no dis¬cern¬ible results, when the execution of the Pakistani soldiers occurred. In recent days, the government has carried out several retaliatory airstrikes that it says killed dozens of militants in North Waziristan.

TRADING ACCUSATIONS:
The 2010 South Waziristan offensive began with airsstrike, followed by waves of ground troops, although the official cautioned that the terrain and militant locations in North Waziristan are somewhat different.
The official said government targeting would “not discriminate” among the TTP, the Haqqani network and other militant groups in North Waziristan, including al Qaeda.
US officials have long attributed Pakistan’s reluctance to attack there to ties between its intelligence and Afghan groups, such as the Haqqani network, as well as Pakistan’s desire to keep its options open in Afghanistan, should US efforts there fail and the Afghan Taliban return to power.
Pakistan has repeatedly denied the charges and said it would take action that suited its own strategic priorities.
Even as the US and Afghanistan have accused Pakistan of failing to prevent Afghan and al Qaeda terrorists from crossing the border, Pakistan has accused US and Afghan forces of failing to go after TTP forces, many of whom fled to Afghanistan during previous Pakistani offensives.
Both the US and Pakistan have touted the advantages of a hammer-and-anvil strategy, with coordinated operations along the border to stop fleeing militants in both directions.
But as the two nations’ relationship has ebbed and flowed over the years, that level of cooperation has never come to pass.
Now, with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan well underway, the United States no longer has the military resources in eastern Afghanistan to adequately patrol the border, the Pakistani official said.