U.S. Has Limited Leverage on Pakistan to Cut Militant Ties
Admiral Mike Mullen
Tom Williams/Roll Call
Admiral Mike Mullen , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staf told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that the Haqqani extremist network is responsible for attacks on Americans and others in Afghanistan and “acts as a veritable arm” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Admiral Mike Mullen , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staf told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that the Haqqani extremist network is responsible for attacks on Americans and others in Afghanistan and “acts as a veritable arm” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Photographer: Tom Williams/Roll Call
The Obama administration has limited leverage on Pakistan’s military and intelligence service to sever their ties to Afghan militants attacking U.S. and allied targets, according to American officials and outside experts.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that the Haqqani extremist network is responsible for attacks on Americans and others in Afghanistan and “acts as a veritable arm” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Haqqani operatives “planned and conducted” the Sept. 13 assault on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul -- with support from ISI, Mullen said. “We also have credible intelligence” that the Haqqani network was behind the June 28 attack against the Inter- Continental Hotel in Kabul “and a host of other smaller but effective operations,” Mullen said, in likely his last appearance before the panel because he retires next week.
It was the bluntest public comment to date by an administration official on the ties between Pakistan and the Afghan militants. Pakistani officials today denied the allegations and warned the U.S. of consequences.
“This is not in the spirit of partnership,” Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said in an interview on the GEO television channel. “You can’t afford to alienate Pakistani people. If you’re choosing to do so, it will be at your own cost.”
‘Very Unfortunate’
Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani considers Mullen’s statement “very unfortunate and not based on facts,” according to a statement on the army’s website today. “Admiral Mullen knows fully well which all countries are in contact with the Haqqanis. Singling out Pakistan is neither fair nor productive,” he said.
Obama administration concerns about the Haqqani group have escalated as it has become more active and more brazen, a U.S. military official said. The U.S. recently has learned more about the group and its connections with ISI, the official said, on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
The alleged Haqqani group attacks overtook a meeting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had long planned with her Pakistani counterpart this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Clinton had wanted to spend two to three hours with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar discussing the range of U.S. relationships with Pakistan, including economic issues and peace efforts in Afghanistan, a State Department official told reporters in New York on Sept. 18.
First and Last Issue
Instead, counterterrorism and the Haqqani network were the first and last items on Clinton’s mind, the official said.
The U.S. descriptions of the Haqqanis as a proxy force for ISI “are nothing more than allegations right now,” Khar told Pakistan’s Geo Television in an interview broadcast today. “Anything which is said about an ally or a partner publicly to recriminate it or humiliate it isn’t acceptable,” Khar said. “We have seriously conveyed to them that you could lose an ally.”
The head of ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, told Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus this week that Pakistan will get tougher with the Haqqani network and other militant groups, said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the meeting are private. The U.S. will assess that assurance when it sees some action, he said.
Afghan Militants
Mullen and other U.S. officials from all levels of the government have persistently had tough messages on the Haqqani network. U.S. defense and intelligence officials said the U.S. frustration isn’t limited to Pakistan’s support for the group.
The ISI and the country’s military also support other Afghan militant groups that are attacking U.S., NATO and Afghan forces and they aid Pakistani militants who attack India -- a campaign that, if unchecked, could lead to a fourth confrontation between South Asia’s two nuclear powers, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because intelligence information is classified.
In addition, the officials said, the Pakistani government has made only incomplete efforts to curb the finances of Islamic militants in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas near the Afghan border. Shipments of fertilizer from two Pakistani factories, which militants use to make improvised explosive devices, are unchecked, they said.
Eroding Patience
“The litmus test for Pakistan is whether they are willing to sever their ties with proxy groups, including the Haqqanis, in Afghanistan,” said Tom Lynch, a former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs who is now a research fellow for the Near East and South Asia at the National Defense University in Washington. “The patience of the U.S. and its coalition partners is wearing thin.”
Still, there is little that the U.S. can do, especially in the short term, to force Pakistan to halt its support for the militants without endangering what remains of the fragile U.S.- Pakistani relationship.
“I don’t know that there is any credible ‘or else’ or anything else to back up the administration’s ultimatums to Pakistan, except for looking at what they need,” said Lynch. Given the fragility of Afghanistan, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and the dangers of a new confrontation with India, even the leverage the U.S. has is very difficult to use, he said.
Clash of Interests
Pakistan’s interests conflict with America’s more than they converge, said Christine Fair, a Pakistan specialist at Georgetown University in Washington.
While the Obama administration is seeking a credible peace process between the Taliban and the Afghan government, ISI and the Pakistani military regard the Haqqani network and other militants as allies in their campaign to maintain Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and prevent arch-rival India from having political influence on Pakistan’s western border, according to Fair and other specialists.
Pakistani politicians and generals believe America’s appetite for engaging in Afghanistan is waning, as it did after the Soviet Union withdrew from the country in 1989, so they are banking on a U.S. withdrawal, the intelligence officials said.
Pakistan’s greatest vulnerability is economic, said Lynch, including the need to start repaying $11 billion in low interest loans from the International Monetary Fund next February.
Too Important to Fail
Still, Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons, “knows it is too dangerous for the IMF, with the U.S. behind it, to let it fail.” What is more, Fair said, “We have never had the intestinal fortitude to use that leverage.”
While U.S. officials have made veiled threats to mount a commando raid on the Haqqani group’s sanctuary in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, carrying one out risks backfiring by causing the Pakistanis to to halt all counter-terrorism cooperation with the U.S., said Fair. Pakistan was angered by the May 2 special forces operation that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, he said.
“We must take calculated risks, but we need to be cognizant that there is the potential for these things to backfire,” said Frank J. Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at the George Washington University in Washington.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik said his country won’t tolerate an incursion by U.S. forces pursuing militant groups, Reuters reported today. He was responding to Mullen’s statements on Sept. 20 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington that the ISI needed to “disconnect from Haqqani and from this proxy war that they’re fighting.”
Legal Obstacle
A legal obstacle to a military attack on the Haqqani organization inside Pakistan is the fact that the State Department has never designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Three of its leaders have been identified as terrorists and 49 other groups have been named FTOs.
The use of unmanned aerial drones against the Haqqani network is hampered by a scarcity of accurate and timely intelligence on their leaders’ whereabouts, the U.S. intelligence officials said. While the Central Intelligence Agency has far greater capabilities now than it had before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that triggered the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the officials said it still relies on the ISI and other foreign intelligence services for such information.
To contact the reporters on this story: John Walcott in Washington at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net; Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
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