Now the U.S. Is Chasing OBL to His Cave
By Andrew Cochran
The U.S. has taken the gloves are off: In a first, senior U.S. officials acknowledged that U.S. ground forces entered Pakistan to pursue high-value Al Qaeda targets, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden is moving at full speed before President Bush leaves office. "(A) small team of commandos crossed the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan to go after an al Qaida cell operating out of a village less than a mile from the border. The officials said the cell was using the village as a base to plan and conduct cross border raids into Afghanistan. The leader of the cell - whose name the officials did not release - was reported killed along with several women and at least one child." The reactions from the Pakistanis include not just the usual official protests, but also a column from the chairman of the PPP, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of assassinated ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the leading candidate for President. Writing in the Washington Post, Zardari didn't explicitly criticize any U.S. raid into Pakistan. "It is important to remember that Pakistan, too, is a victim of terrorism. Our soldiers are dying on the front lines; our children are being blown up by suicide bombers. We stand with the United States, Britain, Spain and others who have been attacked. Fundamentally, however, the war we our fighting is our war."
Two days ago, Jonathan Winer discussed the need for a broad counterinsurgency effort in the FATA and the Administration's recent determination to now rely on Zardari as a partner in the pursuit of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Pakistanis publicly claimed credit for an attack designed to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, a positive sign of such cooperation. But for the U.S. to attack and admit it just days from the presidential vote appears to be a statement that, with or without Zardari's assistance, the U.S. will attack specific terrorist targets inside Pakistan with sufficient force. I assume that we will mount other such attacks, perhaps frequently, in President Bush's remaining term in office. That's a strategic direction of major consequence which the next President will have to review, but I cannot imagine either of the current candidates putting the gloves back on and withdrawing that capability. |
