Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

Congressional research reportJan 13, 2011

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Pakistan: Key Current Issues and

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Specialist in South Asian Affairs

January 13, 2011

Congressional Research Service

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R41307

CRS Report for Congress

Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

Summary

A stable, democratic, prosperous Pakistan actively combating religious militancy is considered

vital to U.S. interests. U.S. concerns regarding Pakistan include regional and global terrorism;

efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan; nuclear weapons proliferation; the Kashmir problem

and Pakistan-India tensions; democratization and human rights protection; and economic

development. Pakistan is praised by U.S. leaders for its ongoing cooperation with U.S.-led

counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts, although long-held doubts exist about

Islamabad’s commitment to some core U.S. interests. A mixed record on battling Islamist

extremism includes ongoing apparent tolerance of Taliban elements operating from its territory.

Pakistan’s troubled economic conditions and political setting combine with perilous security

circumstances and a history of troubled relations with neighbors to present serious challenges to

U.S. decision makers.

Islamist extremism and militancy in Pakistan is a central U.S. foreign policy concern. The

development hinders progress toward key U.S. goals, including the defeat of Al Qaeda and other

anti-U.S. terrorist groups, Afghan stabilization, and resolution of the historic Pakistan-India

rivalry that threatens the entire region’s stability and that has a nuclear dimension. Long-standing

worries that American citizens have been recruited and employed in Islamist terrorism by

Pakistan-based elements have become more acute in the past year, especially following a failed

May 2010 bombing attempt in New York City that was linked to the “Pakistani Taliban.”

A bilateral Pakistan-India peace process was halted after a November 2008 terrorist attack on

Mumbai was traced to a Pakistan-based terrorist group. This process, strongly supported by the

United States, remains moribund, and serious mutual animosities persist. Pakistan is wary of

India’s presence in Afghanistan, where Islamabad seeks a friendly and perhaps malleable

neighbor, and has had troubled relations with the Kabul government. A perceived Pakistan-India

nuclear arms race has been the focus of U.S. nonproliferation efforts in South Asia.

Pakistan’s political setting remains fluid, with a weak ruling coalition struggling to stay in power.

While the most recent iteration of direct military rule ended in 2008, Pakistan’s military and

intelligence institutions are seen to possess inordinate political power. Rampant inflation and

unemployment, along with serious food and energy shortages, elicit considerable economic

anxiety in Pakistan. These pressures were hugely exacerbated by unprecedented devastation

resulting from mid-2010 flooding. The U.S. government and international financial institutions

are among those strongly urging Islamabad to more quickly institute economic reform.

The Obama Administration continues to pursue close and mutually beneficial relations with

Islamabad. As part of its strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan, the Administration’s Pakistan policy

includes a tripling of nonmilitary aid to improve the lives of the Pakistani people, as well as the

conditioning of U.S. military aid to Islamabad on that government’s progress in combating

militancy and in further fostering democratic institutions. A Special Representative was appointed

to coordinate U.S. government efforts with both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan is among the

world’s leading recipients of U.S. aid and by the end of FY2010 had obtained about $10.7 billion

in overt assistance since 2001, including more than $6 billion in development and humanitarian

aid. Pakistan also has received more than $8 billion in military reimbursements for its support of

and engagement in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts against Islamist militants. This

report reviews key current issues and developments in Pakistan and in U.S.-Pakistan relations. It

will be updated periodically.

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Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

Contents

Overview: Key Current Issues and Developments .......................................................................1

The Obama Administration Strategy............................................................................................3

Notable Developments in Obama Administration Engagement ..............................................5

Appointment of a U.S. Special Representative (SRAP)....................................................5

Policy Reviews, Trilateral Summitry, and Ensuing Diplomacy in 2009 ............................6

Regional Stabilization Strategy, Strategic Dialogue Sessions, Report to Congress,

and Policy Review III in 2010 ......................................................................................8

The Passing of SRAP Richard Holbrooke...................................................................... 11

Assessment of Current U.S.-Pakistan Relations ................................................................... 12

Major Recent Developments ..................................................................................................... 13

Mid-2010 Floods ................................................................................................................ 13

Leaked Diplomatic Cables .................................................................................................. 14

The Assassination of Salman Taseer .................................................................................... 16

An Increasing Pakistani Turn to China?............................................................................... 16

Other Notable Recent Developments................................................................................... 17

Increasing Islamist Militancy .................................................................................................... 17

Official U.S. Designation of Pakistan-Based Terrorists ........................................................ 19

Al Qaeda in Pakistan........................................................................................................... 20

Threats to Punjab and Sindh................................................................................................ 21

Lahore and Southern Punjab.......................................................................................... 21

Karachi ......................................................................................................................... 22

The Swat Valley .................................................................................................................. 23

The 2009 Swat Accord and Reactions............................................................................ 24

Accord Fails, Army Moves In ....................................................................................... 25

Pakistan and the Afghan Insurgency .................................................................................... 26

Pakistani Views on U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan ........................................................... 28

The January 2010 London Conference .......................................................................... 29

Pakistani Moves Against the Afghan Taliban and Potential Role in Negotiations ........... 30

U.S./NATO Supply Routes............................................................................................ 32

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan.................................................... 33

Other Recent Developments in Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations..................................... 33

Pro-Taliban Militants in the Tribal Agencies........................................................................ 34

The Pakistani Taliban .................................................................................................... 34

The Demise of Baitullah Mehsud .................................................................................. 35

Pakistani Military Operations in the Tribal Agencies ........................................................... 36

Bajaur ........................................................................................................................... 37

South Waziristan ........................................................................................................... 37

North Waziristan ........................................................................................................... 39

Other Agencies ............................................................................................................. 40

Analysis of Pakistani Military Operations ..................................................................... 41

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) .................................................................................... 43

Questions About Pakistan’s Main Intelligence Agency......................................................... 44

Shifts in Pakistani Public Attitudes ............................................................................................ 47

Pakistan, Terrorism, and U.S. Nationals..................................................................................... 49

Attempted Times Square Bombing ...................................................................................... 49

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Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

David Headley and Other Notable Cases ............................................................................. 50

U.S. Government Response................................................................................................. 51

U.S.-Pakistan Counterterrorism Cooperation ............................................................................. 52

Joint Security Initiatives/Programs ...................................................................................... 52

2008 Frontier Corps Deaths and U.S. Special Forces Raid................................................... 54

2010 Cross-Border NATO Raids and Frontier Corps Deaths................................................ 54

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Attacks ............................................................................ 55

U.S. Policy.................................................................................................................... 55

Pakistani Protest and Debate Over the Tactic................................................................. 57

Rivalry and Conflict With India................................................................................................. 59

The “Composite Dialogue” Process..................................................................................... 59

Mumbai Terrorist Attacks and the LeT ................................................................................ 61

The Kashmir Dispute .......................................................................................................... 61

Competition in Afghanistan................................................................................................. 62

Nuclear Weapons, Power, and Security...................................................................................... 63

Deteriorated Economic Circumstances ...................................................................................... 64

Power Supplies ................................................................................................................... 66

Taxation.............................................................................................................................. 66

Corruption .......................................................................................................................... 67

Textile Manufacturing and Overseas Market Access ............................................................ 67

Domestic Political Upheaval ..................................................................................................... 69

President Zardari and the National Reconciliation Ordinance .............................................. 70

The 18th Amendment to the Pakistani Constitution............................................................... 71

Tensions Between the Executive and the Judiciary .............................................................. 71

Parliamentary Coalition Weakness ...................................................................................... 72

Recent Human Rights Issues ..................................................................................................... 73

Press Freedom..................................................................................................................... 73

“Disappearances” and Extrajudicial Killings by Security Services ....................................... 74

Blasphemy Laws................................................................................................................. 74

U.S. Foreign Assistance and Congressional Action .................................................................... 75

The Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FODP)....................................................................... 77

U.S. Economic, Development, and Humanitarian Assistance............................................... 77

U.S. Security Assistance...................................................................................................... 78

Defense Supplies........................................................................................................... 79

Training and Law Enforcement ..................................................................................... 82

Selected Pakistan-Related Legislation in the 111th Congress ................................................ 83

Figures

Figure 1. Map of Pakistan ......................................................................................................... 87

Figure 2. District Map of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formally North West Frontier)

Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas ................................................................. 88

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Tables

Table 1. Direct Overt U.S. Aid and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY2002FY2010.................................................................................................................................. 85

Contacts

Author Contact Information ...................................................................................................... 89

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Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

Overview: Key Current Issues and Developments

A stable, democratic, prosperous Pakistan actively working to counter Islamist militancy is

considered vital to U.S. interests. Current top-tier U.S. concerns regarding Pakistan include

regional and global terrorism; stability in neighboring Afghanistan; domestic political stability

and democratization; nuclear weapons

proliferation and security; human rights

Pakistan in Brief

protection; and economic development.

Population: 184 million; growth rate: 1.6% (2010 est.)

Pakistan remains a vital U.S. ally in U.S.-led

Area: 803,940 sq. km. (slightly less than twice the size

anti-terrorism efforts. Yet the outcomes of

of California)

U.S. policies toward Pakistan since 9/11,

Capital: Islamabad

while not devoid of meaningful successes,

Heads of Government: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza

have seen a failure to neutralize anti-Western

Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari (both of the Pakistan

militants and reduce religious extremism in

People’s Party)

that country, and a failure to contribute

Ethnic Groups: Punjabi 45%, Pashtun 15%, Sindhi 14%,

sufficiently to stabilizing Afghanistan.

Saraiki 8%, Muhajir 8%. Baloch 4%, other 6%

Languages: Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Saraiki 10%,

Domestic terrorist bombings and other

Pashtu 8%, Urdu (official) 8%; Baluchi, English (official),

militant attacks became a near-daily scourge

and others 14%

in 2008 and continue at a high rate to date,

Religions: Muslim 95% (Sunni 75%, Shia 20%), Christian,

with Islamist extremism spreading beyond

Hindu, and other 5%

western tribal areas and threatening major

Pakistani cities. In the assessment of a former

Life Expectancy at Birth: female 68 years; male 64

years (2010 est.)

senior U.S. government official, “Pakistan is

the most dangerous country in the world

Literacy: 50% (female 36%; male 63%; 2005 est.)

today. All of the nightmares of the twenty-first

Gross Domestic Product (at PPP): $463 billion; per

century come together in Pakistan: nuclear

capita: $2,494; growth rate 4.4% (2010)

proliferation, drug smuggling, military

Currency: Rupee (100 = $1.17)

dictatorship, and above all, international

Inflation: 15.5% (year-on-year, December 2010)

terrorism.” When asked in early 2010 what

worried him the most of all foreign policy

Defense Budget: $4.11 billion (2.6% of GDP; 2009)

issues, Vice President Joseph Biden answered

U.S. Trade: exports to U.S. $3.53 billion (primarily

“Pakistan,” which he said has deployable

textiles and apparel); imports from U.S. $1.86 billion

nuclear weapons, “a real significant minority

(incl. raw cotton and military equipment) (2010 est.)

of radicalized population,” and “is not a

Sources: CIA World Factbook; U.S. Department of

completely functional democracy.”2 A longCommerce; Government of Pakistan; Economist

time U.S.-based observer sees the

Intelligence Unit; Global Insight; The Military Balance

fundamentals of the Pakistani state in 2011

“either failing or questionable,” and proffers that, with all current U.S. policies proving

ineffective, Pakistan is moving in a direction of “comprehensive failure,” perhaps in as few as

Bruce Riedel, “Pakistan and Terror: The Eye of the Storm,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social

Science, 618, 31, July 2008. (see the June 2010 index at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/

the_failed_states_index_2010).

“CNN Larry King Live, Interview With Vice President Joseph Biden; Senator John Kerry (D-MA), and Teresa HeinzKerry (Part 2),” Federal News Service transcript, February 13, 2010.

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Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

four years.3 The U.S. State Department issues stern warnings on the risks of travel to Pakistan,

and many independent country indices rank the Pakistani state as a failed or failing one. 4

The Pakistani state and people are paying a steep price for their participation in the fight against

Islamist militancy and extremism. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi claims that, in the

post-9/11 period, Pakistan has incurred some 31,000 casualties and has “arrested, apprehended,

and eliminated 17,000 terrorists.” Socioeconomic costs have been high, as well, and include

massive human displacement; increased funding for security and law enforcement institutions,

and reconstruction; sharply reduced investment and capital flight; and all manner of less tangible

infrastructural and cultural costs. Pakistani government officials estimate financial losses of up to

$40 billion since 2001. The severe psychological toll on the Pakistani people has led to an

upsurge in reports of depression, anxiety, paranoia, and post-traumatic stress disorders.5

Pakistan’s troubled economic conditions, fluid political setting, and perilous security

circumstances present serious challenges to U.S. decision makers. On the economic front, the

Islamabad government faces crises that erode their options and elicit significant public

resentment. On the political front, a weak civilian leadership, ongoing power struggles between

the executive and judiciary, and discord in federal-provincial relations all serve to hamper

effective governance. On the security front, Pakistan is the setting for multiple armed Islamist

insurgencies, some of which span the border with Afghanistan and contribute to the

destabilization of that country. Al Qaeda forces and their allies remain active on Pakistani

territory. The compounded difficulties faced by Pakistan and those countries seeking to work with

it, along with the troubling anti-American sentiments held by much of the Pakistani public, thus

present U.S. policy makers with a daunting task.6

Despite some positive signs, the progress of U.S.-Pakistan relations in the post-2001 era has

produced few of the main outcomes sought in both capitals. Religious, ethnic, and political

violence in Pakistan has only increased, as has an already intense anti-Americanism. While a

reasonably free and fair election did seat a civilian government in 2008, that government remains

weak and saddled with immense economic and other domestic problems. Meanwhile, the security

institutions maintain a hold on the formulation of foreign and national security policies, and some

elements appear to have lingering sympathies for the Afghan Taliban and other Islamist militant

groups. From the U.S. perspective, Pakistan’s status as a hotbed of religious extremism has only

become more secure in recent years, Al Qaeda continues to operate in the tribal areas, and

“Pakistan’s Road to Disintegration,” Council on Foreign Relations interview with Stephen Cohen, January 6, 2011, at

http://www.cfr.org/publication/23744/pakistans_road_to_disintegration.html.

In February 2011, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning to Americans, stating that, “The presence of Al

Qaeda, Taliban elements, and indigenous militant sectarian groups poses a potential danger to American citizens

throughout Pakistan,” with terrorists regularly attacking civilian, government, and foreign targets. It also stated that the

movement of U.S. government personnel in the consular cities of Karachi and Peshawar continues to be “severely

restricted” (see http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5269.html). In its 2010 Global Peace Index, Sydneybased Vision of Humanity ranked Pakistan 145th out of 149 countries, identifying the internally displaced population,

rates of incarceration, military spending per capita, gender inequality, and corruption as especially serious factors (see

http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-data/#/2010/scor). Foreign Policy magazine’s Failed State Index again ranked

Pakistan 10th in the world with a “critical” score for 2010, citing especially acute group grievances and factionalized

elites (see the June 2010 index at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/the_failed_states_index_2010).

Qureshi quoted in “The Silent Surge” (interview), Newsweek (online), March 29, 2010; Arshad Ali, “Socio Economic

Cost of Terrorism: A Case Study of Pakistan,” Pakistan Research Unit Brief 57, April 11, 2010; “Pakistan

Psychologists Issue Health Warning,” Reuters, May 13, 2010.

An instructive recent review is Robert Hathaway, “Planet Pakistan,” Washington Quarterly, Winter 2010.

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Afghanistan remains unstable more than nine years after the U.S.-led intervention there.7 More

recently, there are disturbing signs that Pakistan serves as a site for the recruiting and training of

American nationals intent on carrying out terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland.8 In late 2010, an

unnamed senior Pakistani military official, widely believed to be Pakistani Army Chief General

Ashfaq Pervez Kayani himself, described Pakistan as having “transited from most sanctioned ally

to most bullied ally.” He located Pakistani resentment in the perception that the United States

continues to pursue a “transactional relationship” with Pakistan, that it seeks “controlled chaos”

inside Pakistan, and that its true strategy is to “denuclearize” Pakistan. Kayani has thus far

resisted U.S. efforts at persuasion and has shown other flashes of defiance in recent months,

including issuing a reportedly personal order to close the Torkham border crossing after two

Pakistani solders were killed by a NATO helicopter in September. 9

Notwithstanding Pakistan’s ongoing and serious problems—including rampant domestic

militancy, political and economic crises, and deep-seated resentments toward the United

States and neighboring India—Obama Administration decision makers appear to see no viable

alternative but to continue supporting the country and are ready to “double down” with additional

military and economic support. This reportedly was the message Vice President Biden carried

with him during a January 2011 visit to Islamabad.10 While there, the U.S. Vice President

reiterated his and President Obama’s view that Pakistan is “absolutely vital” to U.S. interests, and

he took the opportunity to correct some key misconceptions held among Pakistanis, including that

the United States represents a threat to their sovereignty (“I would respectfully suggest that it’s

the extremists who violate Pakistan’s sovereignty and corrupt its good name”), that America

disrespects or is an enemy of Islam, that U.S. policies favor India in ways that could lead to

Pakistan’s weakening, and that the U.S. will “abandon” Pakistan.11

The Obama Administration Strategy

A key aspect of the Obama Administration’s approach to Pakistan has been development of a

more coherent policy to include a tripling annual nonmilitary aid to improve the lives of the

Pakistani people, with a particular focus on conflict-affected regions, and on focusing increased

U.S. military aid to Islamabad on counterinsurgency goals while conditioning such aid on that

government’s progress in combating militancy. President Obama, Vice President Biden, and

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all supported the Enhanced Partnership With Pakistan Act of

2008 in the 110th Congress (which was never passed), and they strongly encouraged the 111th

Congress to pass a newer version of that legislation. This Pakistan Enduring Assistance and

Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 1886) was passed by the full House in June 2009,

then reconciled with the Senate bill passed that September. President Obama signed the resulting

For a broad overview of many of these issues, and recommendations for a more effective U.S. approach, see C.

Christine Fair, et al., “Pakistan: Can the United States Secure an Insecure State?,” RAND Project Air Force, May 2010.

See also CRS Report R41416, American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat, by (name redacted)

and (name redacted).

“Pakistan the ‘Most Bullied Ally,’” Dawn (Karachi), November 30, 2010; “U.S. Courts Pakistan’s Top General, With

Little Result,” Washington Post, January 1, 2011.

“U.S. to Offer More Support to Pakistan,” Washington Post, January 8, 2011.

“Vice President Jospeh R. Biden Jr. and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani Deliver Remarks at the

Presidential Palace in Islamabad,” CQ Transcriptions, January 12, 2011.

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Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act (EPPA) of 2009 into P.L. 111-73 on October 15, 2009.

The legislation is commonly referred to as the “Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.”

Even as President-elect, Obama asserted that Afghanistan cannot be “solved” without “solving

Pakistan” and working more effectively with that country, saying he believed Pakistan’s

democratically-elected government understands the threat and would participate in establishing

“the kind of close, effective, working relationship that makes both countries safer.”12 Pakistani

President Asif Ali Zardari said his country looked forward to a “new beginning” in bilateral

relations, but repeated his admonition that Pakistan “needs no lectures on our commitment [to

fighting terrorism]. This is our war.” His government repeatedly has asked the Obama

Administration to strengthen Pakistan’s democracy and economic development in the interest of

fighting extremism. 13 Despite Pakistani hopes that President Obama would more energetically

engage diplomatic efforts to resolve the Kashmir problem, the Administration has offered no

public expressions of support for such a shift. Secretary of State Clinton has recognized the

dangers of rising tensions in Kashmir while also deferring calls for greater U.S. involvement

there, saying during her confirmation hearing that the U.S. role will continue to be as it was under

the previous Administration: settlement facilitation, but no mediation.14

In what many observers considered to be a bracing U.S. government wake-up call to Islamabad,

Secretary Clinton told a House panel in April 2009 that “the Pakistani government is basically

abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists.” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates followed with

his own warning that U.S.-Pakistan relations could suffer if Islamabad did not “take appropriate

actions” to deal with the militant threat.15 Days later, President Obama himself expressed “grave

concern” about the situation in Pakistan, offering that the “very fragile” civilian government there

did not appear to have the capacity to deliver basic services to the Pakistani people. He did,

however, acknowledge that the Pakistani military was showing more seriousness in addressing

the threat posed by militants.16 The Administration’s tone shifted considerably after Pakistani

forces launched major offensive operations against Taliban militants in the Swat Valley.

Senior U.S. officials—including President Obama in his December 1, 2009, speech—laud

Pakistan’s military operations against indigenous Taliban militants.17 Yet these officials also want

Islamabad to enlarge the scope of such operations to include action against a broader array of

extremist threats, including those of the greatest concern to India and Western countries. As

articulated by Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, “We must help Pakistan widen its

aperture in seeking out and eliminating all forms of extremism and terrorism—those who threaten

not only Pakistan, but also Afghanistan, the wider South Asia region, and the globe.”18 Secretary

Gates paid an unannounced visit to Pakistan in early 2010 with a central wish to “relinquish the

grievances of the past ... and instead focus on the promise of the future.” In speaking to an

audience of Pakistani military officers, he sought to push back against the rumors fuelling anti12

See the December 7, 2008, “Meet the Press” transcript at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28097635.

Asif Ali Zardari, “Partnering With Pakistan” (op-ed), Washington Post, January 28, 2009; Asif Ali Zardari,

“’Democracy is the Greatest Revenge’” (op-ed), Wall Street Journal, December 27, 2009.

See http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/KerryClintonQFRs.pdf.

Transcript: House Committee on Foreign Affairs Holds a Hearing on “New Beginnings: Foreign Policy Priorities in

the Obama Administration,” April 22, 2009; “Pentagon Chief in Taliban Warning,” BBC News, April 23, 2009.

“Obama Transcript: First 100 Days,” CNN.com, April 29, 2009.

“US Praises Pakistan Progress Vs. Taliban,” Associated Press, August 17, 2009.

Statement before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, December 2, 2009.

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Americanism there, stating unequivocally that the United States “does not covet a single inch of

Pakistani soil [nor] military bases,” nor does it “desire to control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”19

More intensive diplomacy and U.S. assurances that Pakistan will play a major role in the political

future of Afghanistan may have contributed to persuading Pakistani leaders—especially military

officers—that they need no longer rely on extremist groups to maintain influence. The U.S.

Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, who died in December

2010, attributed Pakistan’s early 2010 moves against the Afghan Taliban to the “cumulative

effect” of hard work and multiple visits to Pakistan by numerous senior U.S. officials.20 Yet some

in Congress express continuing skepticism about Islamabad’s commitment to resolving the

Afghan insurgency and to a genuine partnership with the United States.21 Meanwhile, many

observers in Pakistan complain that U.S. diplomacy remains too skewed toward security issues

and overly reliant on military-to-military relations, at some cost to public diplomacy. Reports

suggest that even those Pakistanis with traditionally strong ties to the United States have begun

seeking alternative destinations for work, education, and travel, a sign of troubled U.S.-Pakistan

relations in the new decade. 22

Notable Developments in Obama Administration Engagement

Appointment of a U.S. Special Representative (SRAP)

Two days after taking office, President Obama announced the appointment of former Clinton

Administration diplomat Richard Holbrooke to be Special Representative to Afghanistan and

Pakistan (SRAP). The SRAP’s central task is to coordinate across the entire U.S. government to

achieve U.S. strategic goals in the region. In accepting the job, Holbrooke called the Pakistan

situation “infinitely complex” and noted the need to coordinate what he called a “clearly chaotic

foreign assistance program.”23 Prior to the announcement, there was speculation that the new U.S.

President would appoint a special envoy to the region with a wider brief, perhaps to include India

and even Kashmir. The State Department insisted that Holbrooke’s mandate is strictly limited to

dealing with “the Pakistan-Afghanistan situation.” Given Holbrooke’s reputation as a “bulldozer”

with strong and sometimes negative views about South Asia’s circumstances, his appointment

caused some consternation in the region. 24 Before his untimely death, Holbrooke made numerous

trips to the region and, despite setbacks, contended that U.S.-Pakistan relations were improving.

Robert Gates, “’Our Commitment to Pakistan’” (op-ed), News (Karachi), January 21, 2010; U.S. Embassy’s January

23, 2010, transcript at http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-10012303.html.

Michael Hirsh, “Obama’s Pakistan Successes,” Newsweek (online), February 23, 2010; Fareed Zakaria, “A Victory

for Obama,” Newsweek, March 12, 2010; Holbrooke’s March 2, 2010, comments at http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/

rmks/2010/137693.htm.

“Key Senator Lashes Out at Pakistan Government,” CNN.com, October 1, 2010; “Congress Getting Frustrated With

Pakistan as a War Ally,” Washington Times, October 5, 2010.

“Shamshad Ahmad, “Where is US Public Diplomacy?” (op-ed), News (Karachi), January 13, 2010; “Many

Disillusioned Pakistanis Look Beyond U.S. for Work, Education, and Travel,” Washington Post, May 24, 2010.

In 2008, Holbrooke penned a Foreign Affairs article in which he declared that Afghanistan and Pakistan “now

constitute a single theater of war.” Among the major problem areas identified with regard to U.S. efforts in

Afghanistan, he called pacifying the “insurgent sanctuaries” in Pakistan’s tribal areas as being the toughest, noting that

“Pakistan can destabilize Afghanistan at will—and has” (“Mastering a Daunting Agenda,” Foreign Affairs,

September/October 2008).

“New Envoy Unnerves South Asia,” Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2009; “South Asian Chasm of Mistrust Awaits

(continued...)

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Policy Reviews, Trilateral Summitry, and Ensuing Diplomacy in 2009

Afghanistan-Pakistan Policy Review I

In February 2009, President Obama ordered a policy review bringing together various U.S.

government strategy proposals for Afghanistan and Pakistan. A month later, he announced a new

strategy conceiving of the two countries as part of “one theater of operations for U.S. diplomacy

and one challenge for our overall policy.”25 The strategy is rooted in the assumption that, “The

United States has a vital national security interest in addressing the current and potential security

threats posed by extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” All elements of U.S. national power—

including diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—are to be brought to bear in

attaining the “core goal” of disrupting, dismantling, and defeating Al Qaeda and its safe havens in

Pakistan, and in preventing their re-emergence in Pakistan or Afghanistan. To this end, the

Administration seeks to overcome the “trust deficit” the United States faces in the region and to

“engage the Pakistani people based on our long-term commitment to helping them build a stable

economy, a stronger democracy, and a vibrant civil society.”26

Early in his tenure, Ambassador Holbrooke asserted that, of the many challenges faced by the

Administration in formulating its policy, the most daunting was dealing with western Pakistan

and the “red lines” set by Islamabad barring foreign troops from operating there.27 Holbrooke

believed the new approach differed from that of the previous Administration in its aim of better

integrating “stove-piped” policies, in its greater resource endowment, and in its proposed effort to

more directly counter the propaganda of Islamist radicals in the region. Senate Foreign Relations

Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry welcomed the new strategy as “realistic and bold.”

Then-House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Representative Howard Berman also voiced

strong support for the President’s plan to boost civilian assistance efforts in Pakistan and

Afghanistan. President Zardari called the strategy “positive change” and welcomed increased

U.S. aid as the best way to combat militancy. 28 Even well before the U.S. President announced the

(...continued)

Obama’s Envoy,” Reuters, February 8, 2009.

“Administration Officials Hold a News [sic] on the Administration’s Interagency Policy Review on Pakistan and

Afghanistan,” CQ Transcriptions, March 27, 2009.

There are seven key aspects of the Administration’s primary strategy for U.S.-Pakistan relations: (1) bolstering

Afghanistan-Pakistan cooperation, (2) engaging and focusing Islamabad on the common threat posed by extremism, (3)

assisting Pakistan’s capability to fight the extremists, (4) increasing and broadening assistance in Pakistan, (5)

exploring other areas of bilateral economic cooperation, (6) strengthening Pakistani government capacity, and (7)

asking for assistance from U.S. allies for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Administration thus supports a policy that

would significantly increase nonmilitary aid to Pakistan and that sets “benchmarks” for measuring Islamabad’s success

in combating extremism. President Obama stated that “we must focus our military assistance on the tools, training, and

support that Pakistan needs to root out the terrorists. After years of mixed results, we will not provide a blank check.”

See the “White Paper” at http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Afghanistan-Pakistan_White_Paper.pdf.

“Administration Officials Hold a News [sic] on the Administration’s Interagency Policy Review on Pakistan and

Afghanistan,” CQ Transcriptions, March 27, 2009.

“President Obama’s Afghanistan- Pakistan (AFPAK) Strategy,” U.S. Department of State Foreign Press Center

briefing, March 27, 2009; “Interview with Amb. Holbrooke and Gen. Petraeus,” Jim Lehrer Newshour (PBS)

transcript, March 27, 2009; Sen. Kerry’s statement at http://kerry.senate.gov/cfm/record.cfm?id=310648; Rep.

Berman’s statement at http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/press_display.asp?id=603; “Pakistan’s President

Praises Obama and Offers New Concession to Opposition,” New York Times, March 28, 2009.

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new regional strategy, Islamabad had expressed support for a regional approach and warned that a

past overemphasis on the military dimension had not proven fruitful. 29

May 2009 Trilateral Summit and Ensuing Diplomacy

Following a February 2009 trilateral meeting of top diplomats from the United Sates, Pakistan,

and Afghanistan, Secretary of State Clinton announced that the format had proved valuable

enough to continue on a regular basis.30 In May 2009, President Obama hosted the Pakistani and

Afghan presidents in Washington, DC, where he characterized their meeting as one of “three

sovereign nations joined by a common goal”: to permanently defeat Al Qaeda and its extremist

allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The U.S. President expressed being pleased that his

counterparts were serious in addressing the threat posed by such extremists and he stated that

such trilateral meetings would continue on a regular basis.31

In October 2009, following energetic Pakistani counterinsurgency efforts in the Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa province (KPk, formerly the North West Frontier Province or NWFP) and the

launching of a ground offensive in South Waziristan, Secretary Clinton paid a visit to Pakistan,

where she had meetings with senior political and military leaders, as well as frank and open

interactions with civil society members. The lead U.S. diplomat impressed many Pakistanis with

her willingness to hear and respond to criticisms of American policy; the three-day visit may have

done much to repair still extensive damage in bilateral relations. A former Pakistani Ambassador

to the United States lauded the Secretary’s “striking and impressive display of public diplomacy,”

contrasting it with what she called the “patronizing style” of Ambassador Holbrooke. 32

When then-National Security Advisor General James Jones, met with President Zardari in

Islamabad in late 2009, he reportedly delivered to the Pakistani leader a personal letter written by

President Obama which conveyed an “expectation” that Zardari rally his country’s political and

national security institutions in a united campaign against regional extremism. By some accounts,

Jones and White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan told their interlocutors that the

United States was prepared to take unilateral action in the absence of rapid Pakistani movement.

Such action could include expanding drone strikes to Baluchistan and resuming Special

Operations missions across the Durand Line. Shortly after, Pakistan’s foreign minister told

reporters, “We will not do anything, more or less, at the prodding of others.” Zardari later

delivered his own letter to the U.S. President indicating that Pakistan recognized the common

threat, but was intent on following its own timeline and operational needs. 33

See http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2009/Feb/PR_62_09.htm.

See http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/119864.htm.

See http://www.gpoaccess.gov/presdocs/2009/DCPD-200900331.pdf.

“Clinton Suffers Barbs and Returns Jabs in Pakistan,” New York Times, October 30, 2009; “Clinton in Pakistan

Encounters Widespread Distrust of U.S.,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2009; Maleeha Lodhi, “Testing Times for

Pakistan-US Relations” (op-ed), News (Karachi), November 10, 2009. See also Najamuddin Shaikh, “Did Clinton’s

Visit Make a Difference?” (op-ed), Daily Times (Lahore), November 13, 2009.

“Pakistan Told to Ratchet Up Fight Against Taliban,” New York Times, December 8, 2009; “Pakistan Won’t Be

Pushed by Foreign Pressure: Qureshi,” Dawn (Karachi), November 16, 2009; “Pakistan’s Zardari Resists U.S. Timeline

for Fighting Insurgents,” Washington Post, December 16, 2009.

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Afghanistan-Pakistan Policy Review II

The Obama Administration completed a second Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review in late 2009.

In apparent recognition that recent U.S. policy toward Pakistan had failed to achieve

Washington’s main objectives, President Obama announced on December 1, 2009, that he would

seek to shift the nature of the bilateral relationship:

In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are

over. Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a

foundation of mutual interest, mutual respect, and mutual trust. We will strengthen

Pakistan’s capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear

that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose

intentions are clear.34

The latter clause on safe havens was perhaps the most categorical high-visibility official

statement to date, and the President continued encouraging Pakistan’s leaders to sustain their fight

against extremists and to eliminate terrorist safe havens in their country.35 Some in Congress were

critical of President Obama’s continued dependency on a Pakistani ally they view as unreliable

and perhaps insufficiently determined to combat the extremist elements seen as most threatening

to the United States.36

Regional Stabilization Strategy, Strategic Dialogue Sessions, Report to

Congress, and Policy Review III in 2010

January 2010 Regional Stabilization Strategy

In January 2010, the SRAP’s office released its Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization

Strategy. Maintaining a primary focus on disrupting, dismantling, and defeating Al Qaeda forces

in the region, the document acknowledges that,

There remains mistrust between our two countries, but we see a critical window of

opportunity created by the recent transition to democratic, civilian rule and the broad,

sustained political support across Pakistan for military operations against extremists. We

seek to lead the international community in helping Pakistan overcome the political,

economic, and security challenges that threaten its stability, and in turn undermine regional

stability.

The strategy has sought to further mobilize the international community and improve

coordination among the 60 countries and international organizations providing assistance to

Pakistan, as well as among the 40-odd Special Representatives for Afghanistan and Pakistan.37

See the text of the President’s December 1, 2009 speech at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarkspresident-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan.

See the December 1, 2009, White House Fact Sheet at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/way-forwardafghanistan.

“Congress Worries About Obama’s Plan for Pakistan,” New York Times, December 3, 2009.

Key initiatives for Pakistan are four: (1) committing sizeable resources to high-impact economic and development

projects, and doing so by increasing the amount of aid channeled directly through Pakistani institutions (such projects

focus on energy, agriculture, water, health and education, assistance to displaced persons, and strengthening democratic

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Despite this document and rhetoric, Pakistani officials continued to express dissatisfaction with

the bilateral relationship, especially with regard to U.S. recognition of the perceived threat to

Pakistan represented by India. After meeting with Ambassador Holbrooke in January 2010,

Foreign Minister Qureshi noted, “A very strong perception in Pakistan that, despite our very good

relations, the United States has not paid sufficient attention to Pakistan’s concerns, security

concerns vis-à-vis India.”38

March 2010 Strategic Dialogue Session

President George W. Bush had launched a “Strategic Dialogue” process with Pakistan that

included high-level meetings in 2007 and 2008. The Obama Administration revived this forum in

March 2010, when a large delegation of senior Pakistani leaders visited Washington, DC.

Although the delegation was officially led by Foreign Minister Qureshi, many observers saw the

Army Chief, General Kayani, as being the dominant figure in planning the Islamabad

government’s agenda and the dominant participant in ensuing bilateral talks, in some ways

overshadowing the foreign minister.39 In the lead-up to the dialogue, Qureshi issued categorical

statements about the need for Washington to “do more” in its relations with Islamabad: “We have

already done too much.... Pakistan has done its bit, we have delivered. Now it’s your turn.”

Islamabad’s unusual step of presenting a 56-page document containing requests for expanded

military and economic aid was seen by some as a signal that Pakistan was willing to more openly

align itself with U.S. interests, but with a possible price. Rumors circulated that Pakistan had

agreed to roll back its indigenous militant networks in return for guarantees from the United

States and other major governments that it would get special consideration in regional political

and economic affairs, perhaps even to include civil nuclear cooperation deals. 40

Obama Administration officials were uniformly positive in their characterizations of the

Pakistanis’ visit. A joint statement issued at the close of the two-day Strategic Dialogue session

noted the elevation of engagement to the Ministerial level, as well as the creation of a Policy

Steering Group “to intensify and expand the sectoral dialogue process.” Secretary Clinton paid

tribute “to the courage and resolve of the people of Pakistan to eliminate terrorism and militancy,”

and the United States “reaffirmed its resolve to assist Pakistan to overcome socioeconomic

challenges.” Pakistan, for its part, expressed its appreciation for U.S. security assistance.41 Some

Pakistani analysts were unhappy with the outcome of the talks, arguing that, beyond the

pageantry, little of substance was gained by Islamabad on its key priorities—preferential trade,

access to civil nuclear technology, and U.S. assistance in resolving dispute with India.42

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institutions); (2) sustaining and expanding Pakistan’s counterinsurgency capabilities, and disrupting illicit financial

flows to extremists; (3) assisting with the recovery of displaced persons; and (4) expanding U.S. public diplomacy

efforts, and “countering extremist voices.” The strategy also lists extensive “milestones,” or metrics, for determining

progress in each of these areas (see http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/135728.pdf).

See the U.S. Embassy’s January 14, 2010, transcript at http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-10011401.html.

“Army Chief Driving Pakistan’s Agenda for Talks,” New York Times, March 21, 2010 S. Khalid Husain, “The CivilMilitary Angst” (op-ed), News (Karachi), April 21, 2010.

Qureshi quoted in “US Should Also Do More: FM Qureshi,” Dawn (Karachi), March 18, 2009; “U.S. Sees Hope in

Pakistan Requests for Help,” Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2010; “Pakistan, US Agree on New Afghan Set-Up,”

News (Karachi), March 10, 2010.

See the U.S.-Pakistan March 25, 2010, joint statement at http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-10032603.html.

See, for example, Maleeha Lodhi, “How Strategic Was the Washington Dialogue? (op-ed), News (Karachi), March

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The Administration’s September 2010 Report to Congress

Section 1117 of the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009 (P.L. 111-32) requires the President

to issue biannual reports to Congress on progress toward U.S. policy objectives in Pakistan and

Afghanistan. The Administration’s delivered a September 30, 2010, report covering the first eight

months of 2010, and its unclassified sections contained extensive discussion of three of the five

“supporting objectives” directly relevant to Pakistan.43 The overall tone of the report was

considered by most readers to be sober and realistic, pointing out areas of progress while not

shying from recognition of significant ongoing obstacles to same.

Discussion on one key objective—efforts to enhance Pakistan’s civilian government capacity and

stability—found that government remaining stable for the reporting period while also coming

under persistent broad-based challenges, especially those posed by a “fragile” economic situation

badly exacerbated by the floods, and by continuing battles between the executive and judiciary.

The reported offered that, “President Zardari’s declining popularity and low support among

Pakistani political stakeholders stood out as the most obvious factor impacting” the civilian

government’s circumstances.

On another key U.S. objective—developing Pakistan’s counterinsurgency capabilities—the report

noted Pakistan’s successful military operations in several FATA and KPk regions and the general

ability of security forces to hold these areas. Yet it also contended that Pakistan’s army had

“stopped short of the kind of large-scale operations that would permanently eject extremist

groups” from their western Pakistani havens and identified a “fundamental problem” in that

organization’s “inability to transition to effective hold and build efforts in cleared areas.” Perhaps

most alarmingly for a Washington audience, the Pakistani military was seen to be continuing to

“avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with the Afghan Taliban or Al

Qaeda forces in North Waziristan,” and the report concluded this avoidance was “as much a

political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets.”

October 2010 Strategic Dialogue Session

The October 2010 Strategic Dialogue session was the unprecedented third of the year and was

intended to examine progress in the implementation of agreements related mostly to assistance

that had been made during the summer. In the lead-up to the event, the Obama Administration

announced its intention to further boost military assistance to Pakistan, at least in part as a means

of encouraging more rapid and robust Pakistani military operations in the FATA.44 In a joint

appearance with her Pakistani counterpart, Secretary Clinton lauded progress on the “action

plans” created by each of the Dialogue’s 13 working groups, formally announced a new MultiYear Security Assistance Commitment to Pakistan (involving an intention to request from

Congress $400 million in annual foreign Military Financing Funds for FY2012-FY2016, a boost

of $100 million per year from current levels), and again reiterated her contention that reform of

Pakistan’s tax system was a primary need. 45 President Obama met personally with Pakistani

(...continued)

30, 2010.

Two other objectives were discussed in classified annex only.

“U.S. Plans Increased Military Aid for Pakistan,” Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2010.

See the State Department’s October 22, 2010, transcript at http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/10/149815.htm.

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delegates, underlining the importance of the Dialogue in “moving the relationship toward a true

partnership based on mutual respect and common interests.”46 The resulting Joint Statement

expressed mutual satisfaction with progress made since the March and July sessions, noted that

the Obama Administration would “redouble its efforts” to win congressional support for ROZ and

enterprise fund legislation, and announced President Obama’s plans to visit Pakistan in 2011.47

Press reports indicated that, in private, U.S. officials warned their Pakistani counterparts that

continued inaction against certain militant groups in western Pakistan could jeopardize future

U.S. financial largesse, perhaps even to include a cut in coalition support fund reimbursements.48

Afghanistan-Pakistan Policy Review II

The Administration’s annual Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review was not released in unclassified

form but for a five-page summary. This December 16, 2010, document conveyed an unchanged

overarching goal (disrupting, dismantling, and defeating Al Qaeda in the region) and claimed

notable gains, most especially what it called unprecedented pressure on Al Qaeda in Pakistan,

resulting in their weakening. Recognizing that sustained denial of extremist safe havens is

necessary for ultimate success, the Administration remains “relentlessly focused on Pakistanbased Al Qaeda.” It calls for “greater cooperation with Pakistan along the border with

Afghanistan” and acknowledges that effective development strategies are required to complement

military means.49

The December strategy review was described by the Acting SRAP as being a “clear-eyed and

realistic” assessment of a “tough foreign policy challenge.” While recognizing ongoing problems,

it noted “significant progress” on combating Al Qaeda in Pakistan and “significant activity” by

the Pakistani military to shut down sanctuaries used by Islamist militants in the border region. 50

In commenting on the review, senior Pentagon officials lauded what they called substantial

improvement in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship during 2010, and a daily and measureable

improvement in coordination of counterterrorism efforts.51

The Passing of SRAP Richard Holbrooke

Ambassador Holbrooke’s sudden December 14, 2010, death was costly for U.S. diplomacy and

could prove to be a lasting setback for efforts to stabilize and realize other U.S. policy goals in the

region. Holbrooke was seen to be a champion of increased economic assistance to Pakistan and a

bulwark against those in the U.S. government who focus on militarized approaches to the region.

His deputy and now Acting Special Representative, Frank Ruggerio, is characterized as a highly

competent diplomat, but one without extensive knowledge of Pakistan and, more importantly,

without the personal clout that Holbrooke wielded. In this respect, there are concerns among

some observers that the influence of U.S. military leaders on U.S. policy in the region could

See the October 20, 2010, White House release at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/10/20/readoutpresident-obama-s-meeting-afghanistan-and-pakistan.

See the October 22, 2010, text at http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/10/149815.htm.

“U.S. Warns Pakistan: Fight Taliban or Lose Funding,” Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2010.

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/12/16/overview-afghanistan-and-pakistan-annual-review.

See the State Department’s December 16, 2010, transcript at http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/12/153039.htm.

See the Pentagon’s December 16, 2010, transcript at http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=

4742.

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further increase. Secretary Clinton dispatched the Acting SRAP to Islamabad and Kabul in

January to reassure leaders in both capitals that U.S. policy toward the region would not change

with Holbrooke’s passing. 52

Assessment of Current U.S.-Pakistan Relations

The outlook for progress in Pakistan’s political, economic, and security circumstances in 2011 is

fairly poor. 53 Because of this, progress toward attainment of U.S. goals in its engagement with

Pakistan is likely to remain difficult, and serious mutual distrust persists in the relationship.

Pakistani officials often complain that the United States is insufficiently concerned with

Islamabad’s regional security perspective, and they offer criticism that Washington is not moving

to provide greater market access for Pakistani exports.54 Moreover, Pakistan continues to push for

a civil nuclear cooperation deal with the United States. To date, the Obama Administration has

flatly rejected any discussions with Pakistan on this issue. 55

Meanwhile, with the Islamabad government coming under the immense dual pressures of natural

disaster and widespread armed insurgency in the autumn of 2010, and concurrent negative

developments in U.S.-Pakistan relations, U.S. officials became all the more concerned about

political instability in Pakistan. Observers in Washington see in Pakistan an unstable ally that may

not have the determination, much less the capacity, to deliver what the United States is seeking.56

In late September, Ambassador-Designate Cameron Munter conveyed to the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee a belief that Pakistan requires a strong civilian government and that

common U.S.-Pakistan successes can be achieved only “with a strong partner in Pakistan’s

democratically-elected government.” He vowed to continue to work aggressively to improve the

U.S. image in Pakistan.57

Some analysts, alarmed by signs that mutual disconnect are increasing, call for urgent reparative

action from both Islamabad and Washington. Major tasks facing Pakistan include reforming its

political system (especially by completing the transition from a presidential to parliamentary

system, and by further improving both interprovincial and center-province relations) and

reordering its economic priorities in order to foster greater domestic and foreign investment. The

United States, for its part, can move more quickly to reduce tariffs on Pakistani textile exports,

relax what some see as overly stringent visa restrictions, speed the flow to Pakistan of military

equipment needed for counterinsurgency operations, and, in the longer term, channel its foreign

“Holbrooke Death Leaves Hole in U.S. ‘AfPak’ Team,” Reuters; “Holbrooke’s Death Leaves Void in War Strategy,”

Washington Post; “Richard Holbroooke Often Struggled to be Heard on Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Christian Science

Monitor, all December 14, 2010; State Department’s January 10, 2011, transcript at http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/

rmks/rmks/154599.htm.

A former Pakistani diplomat warns that political and economic turmoil clouds prospects for greater stability in 2011,

seeing the current “lame duck” government as being too preoccupied with its own survival to effect meaningful

economic reform (Maleeha Lodhi, “Pakistan: Living on the Edge,” Atlantic Council (online), January 11, 2011).

“Pakistan Feels US Has Let It down,” Dawn (Karachi), October 18, 2010.

See the October 19, 2010, statement of then-Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Frank

Ruggiero at http://www.state.gov/s/special_rep_afghanistan_pakistan/2010/149666.htm.

“Worries Grow Over Pakistan Stability,” Washington Post, October 1, 2010; Yochi Dreazen, “A Wavering Ally,”

National Journal, October 16, 2010.

“Sen. John Kerry Holds a Hearing on the Nomination of Cameron Munter to be Ambassador to Pakistan,” CQ

Transcriptions, September 23, 2010.

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assistance into high-visibility, high-impact infrastructure projects, especially those related to

energy and water resources. 58 It may be that the most useful near-term “deliverable” for Pakistan

would be increasing U.S. market access for Pakistani exports.59

Many American analysts make explicit calls for a tougher U.S. line toward Pakistan by

“demanding” more counterterrorism operations, and perhaps offering Islamabad a stark choice

between positive incentives and negative consequences. Some call for the creation of more

explicit counterterrorism benchmarks, as well as for the United States to shift more emphasis on

alternative supply lines into Afghanistan and so remove Pakistan’s ability to “hold the [Western]

coalition ransom” by disrupting the supply line that runs from Karachi.60

President Obama’s decision to travel to India without any stops in Pakistan created anxiety among

Pakistani officials who see signs of Washington’s “pro-India” tilt as destabilizing for the region.

By refraining from direct engagement in the Kashmir dispute, moving forward U.S.-India civil

nuclear cooperation, and seeming to sympathize with New Delhi’s perspective on the root sources

of regional terrorism, the Obama Administration’s policies may continue to make difficult any

effective winning of hearts and minds in Pakistan. Islamabad reacted angrily to President

Obama’s November endorsement, delivered in New Delhi, of a permanent U.N. Security Council

seat for India, calling the position “incomprehensible.”61

Major Recent Developments

Mid-2010 Floods62

Pakistan in mid-2010 experienced a catastrophic natural disaster that precipitated a humanitarian

crisis of major proportions. Widespread flooding affected about 20 million Pakistanis and

inundated about one-fifth of the country’s total land area. A joint Asian Development Bank-World

Bank needs assessment estimated that Pakistan had suffered $9.7 billion in direct and indirect

costs, roughly double the amount of damage caused by Pakistan’s 2005 earthquake. 63 Floodinduced devastation was so extensive that it could take decades to rebuild lost infrastructure.64

See Shuja Nawaz, “Pakistan in the Danger Zone: A Tenuous U.S.-Pakistan Relationship,” Atlantic Council, June

2010.

Bush Administration Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called such an initiative “the single most efficient

thing we can do for Pakistan” (“Council on Foreign Relations Holds a Discussion on U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and

Afghanistan,” CQ Transcriptions, November 12, 2010).

Zalmay Khalilzad, “Get Tough on Pakistan” (op-ed), New York Times, October 19, 2010; Ashley Tellis, “Change the

Rules of the Game in Pakistan,” Foreign Policy, November 2010.

“Pakistan Officials Concerned About Obama’s Decision to Bypass Nation on Trip,” Washington Post, November 4,

2010; “Pakistan Hits at US Stance on India,” Financial Times (London), November 10, 2010.

See also CRS Report R41424, Flooding in Pakistan: Overview and Issues for Congress, coordinated by (name re

dacted), (name redacted), and (name redacted), and CRS Report R41358,

Security and the Environment in Pakistan,

by (name redacted) et al.

See the October 14, 2010, release at http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2010/13363-pakistan-flooding-assesments.

“The Costs of Pakistan’s Floods,” Council on Foreign Relations Analysis Brief, August 10, 2010; “Pakistan Flood

Sets Back Infrastructure by Years,” New York Times, August 26, 2010.

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The floods stemmed from abnormally heavy rains during the monsoon season in July and August.

This led to flooding in the Indus River Basin which traverses Pakistan from north to south.

Excess water led the Indus River and its tributaries to breach their levees and inundate adjacent

and downstream floodplains. Some 2,000 people were killed by the flooding and an estimated

eight million Pakistanis were displaced from their homes. The number of people affected was

significantly greater than seen in several major disasters around the world since 2000. Little clean

drinking water was available for many of those affected and remains a problem to date. Many of

those affected, particularly children, have faced potential disease outbreaks, particularly diarrhea

and cholera. The catastrophic loss of livestock and crop lands and extensive damage to the

country’s infrastructure are projected to have long-term negative effects on Pakistan’s food

security and economic performance.

Pakistani officials organized their emergency response at the federal, provincial and district

levels. The Pakistan National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) is responsible for overall

coordination of disaster response efforts by both the government and the international community.

The NDMA works closely with federal ministries, government departments, the armed forces,

U.N. agencies, and donors to mobilize, receive, and deploy relief goods.65 Relief activities have

also been coordinated by provincial-level and district-level governments. The Pakistani military

took the lead in providing emergency relief to affected areas, eventually diverting about 70,000

regular and paramilitary troops to such efforts. As with the 2005 earthquake, the disaster

illuminated the extremely limited capacity of Pakistan’s government institutions to effectively

address crises situations. This is especially so with regard to the country’s civilian administration.

The United States has been the leading international contributor to the relief effort, and by

November had devoted more than $571 million in FY2010 and FY2011 funds to this cause.66 The

U.S. military also provide in-kind support, including transport aircraft, helicopters, and crews,

distributing some 25 million tons of relief supplies in an effort that formally ended December 1.

In September, the full House passed H.Res. 1613, which expressed condolences to and solidarity

with the Pakistani people in the aftermath of the floods. The resolution also supported the use of

“Kerry-Lugar-Berman” funds for long-term rehabilitation and recovery while urging a “reexamination” of spending priorities for such funds with a view toward ensuring appropriate

address of the Pakistani people’s needs.

Leaked Diplomatic Cables

In July and again in November 2010, the WikiLeaks website posted thousands of sensitive U.S.

diplomatic cables, many of them with content relevant to U.S. foreign relations in South Asia.

The cables reportedly illuminated what may be deep fissures in the strategic goals of the United

States and Pakistan, especially in the area of Pakistan’s support for Taliban-linked groups. They

also reportedly revealed efforts by U.S. diplomats to support Islamabad’s weak civilian

government while at the same time recognizing that the true locus of power on national security

and foreign policy is at the military’s headquarters in Rawalpindi.67

United Nations, Pakistan: Floods Relief and Early Recovery Response Plan, United Nations, November 2010,

http://pakresponse.info/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=47teGm9PeB8%3d&tabid=93&mid=676.

See USAID fact sheets at http://www.usaid.gov/pakistanflooding.

“Nuclear Fuel Memos Expose Wary Dance With Pakistan,” New York Times, November 30, 2010.

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Islamabad’s official response in July was to call the cables “misplaced, skewed and contrary to

the factual position on the ground.”68 In November, Islamabad stated that, “We are not in a

position to comment on the veracity of U.S. internal documents. We consider the extremely

negative reports carried on Pakistan-Saudi relations attributed to WikiLeaks as misleading and

contrary to the facts.” On a report that the U.S. government had sought to reacquire highly

enriched uranium provided to Pakistan decades earlier, the Foreign Ministry commented:

“Pakistan is an advanced nuclear technology state. No one can touch Pakistan’s nuclear facilities

or assets.… The U.S. suggestion to have the [nuclear] fuel transferred was plainly refused by

Pakistan. The suggestion that the reactor is producing HEU is completely incorrect.”69 U.S.

officials contended that the mid-2010 release of classified documents by WikiLeaks presented an

overly simplified and inaccurately negative perspective on U.S.-Pakistan relations, saying they

did not reflect a significant deepening of military and civilian ties in recent months and years. The

United States later expressed to Islamabad “deep regrets” at the disclosure of communications

meant to be confidential and “condemned” it. Senior U.S. officials subsequently sought to play

down the importance of “out of context” documents. 70

There have been concerns that leaked diplomatic cables could further undermine U.S. efforts to

build trust with Pakistan. A roundtable of Washington-based experts found the episode could have

two concrete effects: (1) The airing of private statements made by Gulf State leaders critical of

Pakistan’s civilian government could make those leaders more reticent in future meetings with

U.S. officials and (2) by exposing both U.S. efforts to reclaim enriched uranium from Pakistan

and the (limited) presence of U.S. Special Forces soldiers operating inside Pakistan, the

revelations have fueled virulent Pakistani national suspicions that the United States has a covert

agenda that fundamentally violates the country’s sovereignty. 71 Other observers saw in the cables

evidence of Pakistani instability and unreliability as a U.S. ally, with an ineffectual government

and security institutions that continued to selectively support Islamist extremist groups there,

perhaps including the Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network. Moreover, suggestions found in some

cables that no amount of U.S. assistance to Pakistan would alter that country’s strategic

orientation reveal the depth of U.S. uncertainty about the alliance. 72 In contrast, some

commentators saw in the cables positive news beyond the obvious Pakistani weaknesses: officials

from both sides working with determination to increase trust and cooperation in difficult

circumstances. With Pakistani news outlets focused solely on the sensational aspects of the

cables, “media hysteria” is identified as a negative exacerbating factor.73

See the Foreign Ministry’s July 26, 2010, statement at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2010/July/

PR_169.htm.

See the Foreign Ministry’s November 29, 2010, response at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2010/Nov/

PR_294.htm.

“U.S. Says Pakistan Ties Have Strengthened,” Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2010; “U.S. Officials Try to Minimize

Damage in Pakistan,” Washington Post, December 1, 2010; “Clinton and Zardari Play Down ‘Out of Context’

Wikileaks,” Agence France Presse, December 2, 2010.

See “Will WikiLeaks Hobble U.S. Diplomacy?,” Council on Foreign Relations Expert Roundup (online), December

1, 2010.

“Leaks Paint a Picture of an Unreliable Pakistan,” BBC News, December 1, 2010; “Cables Reveal U.S. Misgivings

About Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 2010.

Syed Yahya Hussainy, “Wikileaks Actually Shows US–Pakistan Relations Are Strong,” New Pakistan (online),

December 2, 2010. A representative example is one Pakistani commentator’s claim that the leaked cables “prove” that

“Pakistan has been practically reduced from a sovereign state to an American colony” (Ansar Abbasi, “After the

Wikileaks Deluge” (op-ed), News (Karachi), December 2, 2010).

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Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

The Assassination of Salman Taseer

On January 4, Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjab province, was assassinated when one of

his own security team shot him 26 times in broad daylight while other bodyguards looked on. A

senior figure in the PPP, Taseer was among the country’s most liberal politicians, and he had

incurred the wrath of Islamists and other conservatives with his vocal criticisms of the country’s

blasphemy laws. His killer, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, had apparently told other police officers of his

plans, but was assigned to guard Taseer anyway. Qadri may have had links with one of the radical

Islamist groups leading public resistance to changes in the blasphemy laws.74 The assassination,

strongly condemned by Secretary Clinton, was widely viewed as a major blow to liberal forces in

Pakistan. At least one unnamed Obama Administration official says it is “a reminder of how

we’re still losing ground in Pakistan.”75

An Increasing Pakistani Turn to China?

Pakistan and China have enjoyed a generally close and mutually beneficial relationship over

several decades. Pakistan served as a link between Beijing and Washington in 1971, as well as a

bridge to the Muslim world for China during the 1980s. China’s continuing role as a primary

arms supplier for Pakistan began in the 1960s and included helping to build a number of arms

factories in Pakistan, as well as supplying complete weapons systems. Chinese companies and

workers are now pervasive in the Pakistani economy. Most recently, China intends to build two

new civilian nuclear reactors in Pakistan in what would be an apparent violation of international

guidelines (see the “Nuclear Weapons, Power, and Security” section below).

As U.S.-India ties deepen, many observers see Islamabad becoming more reliant than ever on its

friendship with Beijing. 76 President Zardari undertook his fifth trip to China as the head of his

government in July 2010, and Islamabad seeks full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation

Organization, in which it currently holds observer status. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s

December 2010 visit to Islamabad, the two governments signed 12 Memoranda of Understanding

(MoUs) covering a broad range of cooperative efforts and designated 2011 as the “Year of ChinaPakistan Friendship.” Also during the visit, Pakistani and Chinese businesses signed contracts

covering cooperation in oil and gas, mining, space technology, heavy machinery, manufacturing,

and other areas worth some $15 billion. This added to the nearly $20 billion worth of

government-to-government agreements reached.77 Some cynical observers reject claims that

China can in any way “replace” the West as a source of significant foreign investment for

Pakistan; one leading commentator deemed the MoUs worthless and noted that Beijing has

produced only nominal flood relief aid.78

“Pakistan Killer Had Revealed Plans,” Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2011; “Former Boss Feared Pakistan

Suspect’s Extremism,” Reuters, January 6, 2011..

“Staring Into the Abyss,” Economist (London), January 6, 2011; official quoted in “A Pakistani Assassin’s Long

Reach,” New York Times, January 8, 2011.

“At Odds With the U.S., Pakistan Deepens Ties With China,” Time, November 1, 2010.

See the December 19, 2010, Pakistan-China Joint Statement at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2010/Dec/

Pr_310.htm; “Fresh From India, Wen Builds Pakistan Trade Ties,” Reuters, December 18, 2010.

See Najam Sethi, “Pak-China Relations: Fact and Friction” (op-ed), Friday Times (Lahore), December 24, 2010.

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Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

Other Notable Recent Developments

•

In August 2010, a delegation of Pakistani military officers in the United

States for a conference departed the country early and in protest after saying

they had been unjustly removed from a flight to Florida, then interrogated and

rudely treated by security officials at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. The

Pakistani Army called the treatment “unwarranted” and canceled the visit. A State

department spokesman attributed the incident to misunderstanding and

miscommunication between the delegation and flight crew, and the Department

expressed regret to Islamabad. Yet the events fit well into a Pakistani narrative in

which its citizens and even ranking officials meet with discriminatory treatment

in the United States.79

•

When, in December 2010, the identity of the CIA’s Pakistan station chief

became public and that figure quickly left the country, some U.S. officials were

reportedly convinced that his cover had been intentionally blown by Pakistan’s

military intelligence agency, possibly in retaliation for civil lawsuit that had

recently been filed in a New York court. The suit, brought by relatives of some of

the victims of the 11/08 Mumbai terrorist attack, implicated the ISI chief and

summoned his testimony. An ISI official angrily denied any Pakistani

involvement in the revelation, and Islamabad announced that the summons would

not be obeyed. 80

Increasing Islamist Militancy

Islamist extremism and militancy has been a menace to Pakistani society throughout the post2001 period, becoming especially prevalent since 2007, but the rate of attacks and number of

victims may have peaked in 2009.81 The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center reports a major

decline in terrorist incidents in 2010 as compared to the previous year, with 687 terrorist incidents

in Pakistan in 2010 (down from 1,915 in 2009) resulting in 1,051 fatalities (down from 2,670).

Despite the declined rate, the figures again placed the country third in the world on both

measures, after Afghanistan and Iraq. Suicide bombing is a relatively new scourge in Pakistan.

Only two such bombings were recorded there in 2002; that number grew to 59 in 2008 and 84 in

2009, before dropping to 29 in 2010 (the lowest level since 2005). Still, Pakistan was last year the

site of far more deaths caused by suicide bombing (556) than any other country and accounted for

about one-quarter of all the world’s such bombings.82

A particularly alarming development in recent years is the significantly increased incidence of

militants making direct attacks on Pakistani security institutions. 83 There have also been more

“Pakistan Army Cancels US Talks Over Security Checks,” Reuters, September 1, 2010; State Department’s

September 1, 2020, statements at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/09/146601.htm; “A Serious Blow to Pak-US

Military Relationship,” Business Recorder (Karachi), September 3, 2010.

“Pakistani Role Suspected in Revealing U.S. Spy’s Name,” New York Times, December 17, 2010; “Pakistan Says It

Didn’t Tell Spy’s Identity,” New York Times, December 19, 2010.

Pakistan suffered its worst spate of terrorism ever in the final three months of 2009, when the country suffered 29

major attacks, or an average of roughly one every three days.

See http://www.nctc.gov/wits/witsnextgen.html.

For example, a March 2010 suicide car bombing of the facilities of a special counterterrorism investigate unit in

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attacks on foreign-based charitable organizations, such as the March assault of the KPk offices of

the American Christian group World Vision by about a dozen masked gunmen, which left six

Pakistani employees dead.

According to the State Department’s most recent Country Reports on Terrorism (August 2010),

Foreign terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda and its affiliates, continued to operate

and carry out attacks in Pakistan. Violence stemming from Sunni-Shia sectarian strife and

ethnic tensions, limited to certain geographical areas, claimed civilian lives. Similar to last

year, attacks occurred with greatest frequency in the regions bordering Afghanistan,

including Baluchistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and the North-West

Frontier Province (NWFP). Attacks targeting the country’s major urban centers, including

Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi, and Rawalpindi, continued to increase. The

coordination, sophistication, and frequency of suicide bombings continued to climb in

2009.84

The myriad and sometimes disparate Islamist militant groups operating in Pakistan, many of

which have displayed mutual animosity in the past, appear to have become more intermingled

and mutually supportive since 2009 (see “Islamist Militant Groups in Pakistan,” below).85

According to U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen, speaking in December 2009,

It’s very clear to me, over the last 12 to 24 months, that these organizations are all much

closer than they used to be, whether it’s Pakistan Taliban and Al Qaida, or Al Qaida/Afghan

Taliban, [Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Jaish-e-Mohammed]—they’re all working

much more closely together. So I think it doesn’t accurately reflect the need or the strategy to

single out one group or another. They’re very much all in this in ways, together, that they

weren’t as recently as 12 months ago.86

This developing “syndicate” of armed Islamist extremist in Pakistan even incorporates the

apparently tactical joining of TTP and LeT forces.87

An extensive 2010 study found that Pakistan-based militant groups continue to present a

significant threat to Pakistan, the United States, and other countries. This threat persists,

according to the report, due mainly to Islamabad’s lack of an effective “population-centric”

strategy, the government’s refusal to make a systematic break with all militant groups, and the

inability of Pakistan’s army and paramilitary forces to clear and meaningfully hold territory. The

study determined that Pakistan will continue to be unsuccessful in addressing its indigenous

militant threat over the long term unless its government undertakes two major changes. First,

Islamabad is urged to take a “population-centric” approach to counterinsurgency that makes

civilian security the central goal. Reforming and strengthening local police forces would be

central to this effort. Second, Pakistan must conclusively relinquish militancy as a policy tool.

(...continued)

Lahore killed at least 15 people and destroyed the entire building. Days later, twin suicide attacks on other army targets

in the same city killed dozens more (“Suicide Car Bombers Strikes Pakistani Intelligence Unit,” Los Angeles Times,

March 8, 2010; “Twin Suicide Attacks Hit Military Sites in Pakistan,” New York Times, March 12, 2010).

See http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2009/140887.htm.

See Brian Fishman, “The Battle for Pakistan: Militancy and Conflict Across the FATA and NWFP,” New America

Foundation, April 2010.

See the Pentagon’s December 16, 2009, release at http://www.jcs.mil/speech.aspx?ID=1298.

“Insurgents Set Aside Rivalries on Afghan Border,” New York Times, December 28, 2010.

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Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments

This process could be facilitated by a U.S. policy that focuses on altering Pakistan’s strategic

calculus. For its part, Washington is urged to reduce its reliance on Pakistan, especially through

development of alternative supply lines to Afghanistan, and to be more willing to use foreign

policy “sticks” such as withholding of aid in the absence of measureable progress, while also

seeking means of offering the strategic “carrots” most valued by Islamabad.88

Islamist Militant Groups in Pakistan

Islamist militant groups operating in and from Pakistani territory are of five broad types:

•

Globally-oriented militants, especially Al Qaeda and its primarily Uzbek affiliates, operating out of the FATA and in

the megacity of Karachi;

•

Afghanistan-oriented militants, including the “Quetta shura” of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, believed to

operate from the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta, as well as Karachi; the organization run by Jalaluddin

Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, in the North Waziristan tribal agency; and the Hizb-I Islami party led by

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (HiG), operating further north from the Bajaur tribal agency and Dir district;

•

India- and Kashmir-oriented militants, especially the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and Harakat

ul-Mujahadeen (HuM), based in both the Punjab province and in Pakistan-held Kashmir;

•

Sectarian militants, in particular the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and its offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi

(LeJ), the latter closely associated with Al Qaeda, operating mainly in Punjab; and

•

Domestically-oriented, largely Pashtun militants that in 2007 unified under the leadership of now-deceased Baitullah

Mehsud as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), then based in the South Waziristan tribal agency, with

representatives from each of Pakistan’s seven FATA agencies, later to incorporate the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-eShariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) led by Maulana Sufi Mohammed in the northwestern Malakand and Swat districts

of the former North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Official U.S. Designation of Pakistan-Based Terrorists

In 2010, the U.S. government accelerated its official designation of terrorists and terrorist groups,

as well as their financial support networks operating in Pakistan. In June, five U.S. Senators

sponsored legislation to instruct the Secretary of State to designate the TTP as a Foreign Terrorist

Organization (FTO). This “Combating the Pakistani Taliban Act of 2010 (S. 3560) did not move

out of committee. However, during a July nomination hearing for the newly named Commander

of U.S. Central Command, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Gen.

James Mattias both agreed that the Haqqani network and Quetta Shura should be designated as

FTOs.89 In August, Secretary Clinton ordered that, under Executive Order 13224, the TTP be

named an FTO, and that TTP leaders Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali ur Rehman be named a

Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The announcement was made in September, when the

Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against Mehsud, accusing him of conspiring in the

deadly suicide bomb attack on the CIA outpost in Khost, Afghanistan, and senior

counterterrorism official Daniel Benjamin also noted that the U.S. government was offering $5

million reward for information leading to the arrest of either of the two militant leaders.90 In

Seth Jones and Christine Fair, “Counterinsurgency in Pakistan,” RAND, June 2010.

“Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing on the Nomination of Gen. James Mattias to U.S. Central

Command,” CQ Transcripts, July 27, 2010.

Federal Register 75, 169, p. 53732, September 1, 2010; State Department’s September 1, 2010, transcript at

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November, the State Department also designated Jundallah, an Iran-oriented militant group

operating in Baluchistan near the Iranian border, as an FTO.91 The Treasury Department is

continuing its efforts to isolate terrorist figures and curtail terrorist financing in the region. In

November, it targeted the financial support networks of both the LeT and JeM.92

Al Qaeda in Pakistan93

U.S. leaders remain concerned that Al Qaeda terrorists operate with impunity on Pakistani

territory, and that the group appears to have increased its influence among the myriad Islamist

militant groups operating along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, as well as in the densely

populated Punjab province and in the megacity of Karachi. In early 2009, the Obama

Administration declared that the “core goal” of the United States should be to “disrupt, dismantle,

and defeat Al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or

Afghanistan.”94 The President continues to assert that Al Qaeda represents the top-most threat to

U.S. security, and the State Department’s most recent Country Reports on Terrorism flatly stated

that “In 2009, Al Qaeda’s core in Pakistan remained the most formidable terrorist organization

targeting the U.S. homeland.”95 Recent unclassified assessments place more than 300 Al Qaeda

operatives in Pakistan’s tribal areas.96

While taking questions from senior Pakistani journalists during an October 2009 visit to Pakistan,

Secretary of State Clinton offered a pointed expression of U.S. concerns that some elements of

official Pakistan maintain sympathy for most-wanted Islamist terrorists:

Al Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it hard to believe that nobody in

[the Pakistani] government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted

to. And maybe that’s the case. Maybe they’re not gettable.... I don’t know what the reasons

are that Al Qaeda has safe haven in your country, but let’s explore it and let’s try to be

honest about it and figure out what we can do.97

Pakistani officials are resentful of such suggestions, and the Islamabad government claims that Al

Qaeda chief bin Laden is not in Pakistan.98

A 2010 analysis calculated that more than one-third of all “serious terrorist plots” in the West

since 2004 were operationally linked to Al Qaeda or its allies inside Pakistan.99 Evidence suggests

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http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/09/146545.htm.

See the November 3, 2010, release at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/11/150332.htm.

See the November and December 2010 releases at http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/

tg944.aspx; http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg980.aspx; and http://www.treasury.gov/presscenter/press-releases/Pages/tg991.aspx.

See also CRS Report R41070, Al Qaeda and Affiliates: Historical Perspective, Global Presence, and Implications

for U.S. Policy, coordinated by John Rollins.

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/afghanistan_pakistan_white_paper_final.pdf.

See the State Department report at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2009/index.htm.

“New Estimate of Strength of Al Qaeda is Offered,” New York Times, July 1, 2010.

State Department Press Release, “Roundtable With Senior Pakistani Editors,” October 30, 2009.

“Bin laden Not in Pakistan, Prime Minister Says,” New York Times, December 4, 2009.

Paul Cruickshank, “The Militant Pipeline,” New American Foundation Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative Policy

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that some of the 9/11 hijackers were themselves based in western Pakistan in early 2001, and a

former British Prime Minister has estimated that three-quarters of the most serious terrorism plots

investigated in Britain had links to Al Qaeda in Pakistan.100 Moreover, as tensions between

Pakistan and India remain tense more than two years after the November 2008 terrorist attack on

Mumbai, Secretary Gates warned that groups under Al Qaeda’s Pakistan “syndicate” are actively

seeking to destabilize the entire South Asia region, perhaps through another successful major

terrorist attack in India that could provoke all-out war between the region’s two largest and

nuclear-armed states.101

Al Qaeda apparently was weakened in Pakistan in 2009 and 2010 through the loss of key leaders

and experienced operatives. Drone strikes, Pakistani military operations, and internal rifts all

combine to degrade the group’s capabilities. Pakistan’s late 2009 offensive in South Waziristan

appears to have pushed Al Qaeda operatives from that region, and some reporting suggests that

Taliban fighters in western Pakistan have become wary of assisting Al Qaeda elements. 102 The

CIA Director claims that improved coordination with the Pakistani government and “the most

aggressive operation that CIA has been involved in in our history” have forced top Al Qaeda

figures even deeper into hiding while disrupting their ability to plan future attacks.103 Yet some

U.S. officials saw the group and its allies rebuilding their damaged infrastructure in 2010.

Moreover, while the strategic goals of Al Qaeda and the Quetta Shura Taliban diverged following

the former’s relocation into the FATA after 2001, Al Qaeda continues to function as a “force

multiplier” for myriad militant groups in western Pakistan, providing manpower, specialized

knowledge, propaganda, and general advice.104

Threats to Punjab and Sindh

Lahore and Southern Punjab

Lahore—the provincial capital of Punjab and so-called cultural heart of Pakistan—was for many

years mostly unaffected by spiraling violence elsewhere in the country. This conclusively ended

with three major terrorist attacks in less than three months in early 2009.105 Militants from

(...continued)

Paper, February 2010.

100

“In Military Campaign, Pakistan Finds Hint of 9/11,” New York Times, October 30, 2009; “Brown Offers Pakistan

Anti-Terror Aid,” Washington Post, December 15, 2008.

101

“Al Qaeda Could Provoke New India-Pakistan War: Gates,” Agence France Presse, January 20, 2010.

102

“Al Qaeda Weakened as Key Leaders Are Slain in Recent Attacks,” Associated Press, September 19, 2009;

“Setbacks Weaken Al Qaeda’s Ability to Mount Attacks, Terrorism Officials Say,” Los Angeles Times, October 17,

2009; “US Intelligence Shows Al Qaeda Fleeing South Waziristan - Gates,” Reuters, December 11, 2009; “Some U.S.

Officials See a Growing Taliban-Al Qaeda Rift,” Los Angeles Times, March 12, 2010.

103

“CIA Director Says Attacks Have Hobbled Al Qaeda,” Washington Post, March 18, 2010.

104

“FBI Director: Al Qaeda Spreading, Rebuilding,” Associated Press, January 20, 2010; Anne Stenersen, “Al Qaeda’s

Allies,” New American Foundation, April 2010.

105

On March 3, 2009, terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team as it was being driven through central Lahore. Six

players were wounded, and six policemen in another vehicle were killed along with two by-standers. Most or all of the

assailants escaped, and the security lapses were a major international embarrassment for the Pakistani state. Then, on

March 30, TTP militants attacked a police academy in Manawan—near the Indian border and only a few miles from

central Lahore—killing eight cadets and wounding scores more before elite commandos secured the facility in a daylong siege. Finally, on May 27, terrorists tried to attack the Punjabi headquarters of the ISI. Suicide bombers were

prevented from reaching the target, but their explosives leveled a neighboring building and the assault left 27 people

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western Pakistan have appeared intent on attacking Lahore to demonstrate the extent of their

capabilities and to threaten the government’s writ throughout the country. 106 More bomb attacks

on Sufi shrines, including some notable ones in Punjab, have demonstrated that militants are

specifically targeting more moderate Pakistani Muslims.107

Islamist militants have in recent years been increasing their influence in southern Punjab, where

most anti-India groups have originated and where a number of Taliban cells have already been

discovered. A 2009 report from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group urged Islamabad to

end its effort to differentiate between militant networks and instead move toward a “zerotolerance” policy, especially with regard to Punjab-based Sunni extremist organizations.108 The

somewhat misnamed “Punjabi Taliban,” a loose conglomeration of banned militant groups in the

Pakistani heartland, are comparatively better educated and better equipped than their Pashtun

countrymen to the west, and are notable for having in many cases enjoyed state patronage in the

recent past.109

In June 2010, Interior Minister Malik offered a rare public admission that extremist groups were

well-entrenched in southern Punjab. He also conceded that Punjabi groups such as the LeJ, SSP,

and JeM were close allies of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda.110 According to several Pakistani

experts, Punjab has become a major recruiting ground and planning hub for terrorists, and also

provides a source of many militants fighting in Afghanistan. Some analysts hold the provincial

ruling (Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz) party responsible for fostering extremism there by

taking religiously conservative and strongly right-wing positions while failing to openly criticize

militancy. There has even been evidence that officials from the Sharif brothers’ PML-N use

militant groups to drum up political support, even to the extent of funding institutions linked to

the Jamaat-u-Dawa, a front group for the LeT.111

Karachi

The megacity of Karachi is among the world’s largest, and is also Pakistan’s leading business and

finance hub. The Sindh provincial capital generates two-thirds of all government revenue and

one-quarter of the country’s GDP.112 Extremists also appear to be moving from the FATA to the

Sindhi capital of Karachi in large numbers in recent months and years, exacerbating preexisting

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dead, including an ISI agent, 12 policemen, and several civilian bystanders.

106

“Sense of Crisis Deepens in Pakistan After Lahore Attack,” Reuters, March 3, 2009; “Why Attack Lahore?,” BBC

News, March 30, 2009; “Insurgent Threat Shifts in Pakistan,” Washington Post, March 31, 2009.

107

“Attacks on Sufi Islamic Shrines Complicate War on Militants,” Washington Post, October 30, 2010.

108

International Crisis Group, “Pakistan: The Militant Jihadi Challenge,” Asia Report No. 164, March 13, 2009.

109

“The Rising Phoenix of Punjabi Taliban,” Weekly Pulse (Islamabad), November 5, 2010; Hasan Abbas, “Defining

the Punjabi Taliban Network,” CTC Sentinel 2:4, April 2009.

110

“Official Admits Militancy Has Deep Roots in Pakistan,” New York Times, June 3, 2010. See also “Pakistani

Militancy Spreads to Country’s Heartland,” Associated Press, June 16, 2010. A crackdown came in July 2010, when up

to 78 suspected militants were detained, but such actions have no apparent lasting mitigating effect (“Police Widen

Operation Against Banned Groups in Southern Punjab,” Express Tribune (online), July 13, 2010).

111

Hasan Askari Rizvi, “Attacks and Beyond” (op-ed), Friday Times (Lahore), June 4, 2010; “Pakistan’s Punjab ‘in

Denial’ Over Local Militants,” Reuters, June 8, 2010; “Hafiz Saeed Rubs Shoulders With Party Chiefs in Lahore,”

Dawn (Karachi), June 14, 2010; “Pakistan ‘Gave Funds’ to Group on UN Terror Blacklist,” BBC News, June 16, 2010.

112

“Volatile Mix of Politics and Crime Plagues Karachi,” Reuters, November 15, 2010.

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ethnic tensions and perhaps forming a new Taliban safe haven in Pakistan’s largest city. 113 Taliban

fighters are increasingly present in Karachi, and reports indicate that the megacity has become a

favored destination for numerous international jihadis. 114 Militants fleeing from battles in Swat

and the FATA have sought refuge in Karachi, where some 2,800 have been arrested in

government anti-terrorism sweeps. Hundreds of thousands of flood refugees only added to ethnic

tensions in the summer of 2010.115 Under threat of expanded U.S. drone strikes on Quetta, senior

Afghan Taliban leadership, including Mullah Omar himself, may have moved to Karachi, perhaps

even with the support of ISI elements. 116 The megacity’s sprawling ethnic Pashtun neighborhoods

provide ideal hideouts for both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban fighters. The disproportionate

political representation enjoyed by the city’s Muhajir community engenders ethnic grudges

among Pashtuns.117 These Pashtun militants are said to have established “mafia-like” criminal

syndicates in Karachi to raise millions of dollars to sustain their insurgencies through kidnaping,

bank robberies, and extortion.118

The Swat Valley

Pakistan has since 2007 faced a “neo-Taliban” insurgency in the scenic Swat Valley of the KPk’s

Malakand district, just 100 miles northwest of the capital, where radical Islamic cleric Maulana

Fazlullah and some 5,000 of his armed followers sought to impose Sharia law. This rebellion

against the state was notable as the only with geographic reach beyond the “tribal belt” and in

part of Pakistan’s “settled areas” nearer the Indus river plains. Fazlullah, also known as “Maulana

Radio” for his fiery (and unlicensed) FM broadcasts, moved to create a parallel government like

that established by pro-Taliban commanders in South Waziristan. Some 2,500 Frontier Corps

soldiers were deployed to the valley, and the army soon took charge of the counterinsurgency

effort at the request of the provincial governor, massing about 15,000 regular troops. By the close

of 2007, militant elements in the area were reported to be in retreat, and the Pakistani government

claimed victory. Yet, in 2008, with militants still active in Swat, government officials reportedly

struck a peace deal. That deal collapsed by mid-year, with sporadic and sometimes heavy fighting

in Swat continuing throughout the year. By all accounts, Islamist insurgents greatly expanded

their influence in Swat in 2008, and many observers asserted that, by 2009, the state’s writ had

completely vanished from the valley. 119

113

“Taliban Find Safe Haven in Pakistan’s Karachi,” Reuters, May 14, 2010. Long-standing tensions between

ethnopolitical rivals roiled Karachi in 2010, with assassinations and spates of political killings leaving hundreds of

people dead in targeted attacks.

114

“Karachi Faces Growing Taliban Menace,” BBC News, June 19, 2010; “International Jihadists Use Karachi as

Hub,” Spiegel (Berlin), November 25, 2010.

115

“Crush of Refugees Inflames Karachi,” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2010.

116

“Terrorists From Swat, FATA Active in Karachi: Malik,” Daily Times (Lahore), February 10, 2010; “Sheltered in

Karachi,” Newsweek, December 7, 2009; “In Violent Karachi, Pakistani Insurgency Finds a Haven and a Forge,” New

York Times, May 22, 2010.

117

Only 4 of Karachi’s 178 boroughs are controlled by Pashtun politicians. Of the Sindh provincial assembly’s 168

seats, the Pashtun ANP party holds only 2 (“Karachi Turns Deadly Amid Pakistan’s Rivalries,” New York Times,

November 18, 2010).

118

“Taliban Militants Find Breathing Rooms in Slums of Karachi, Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, February 28, 2010;

“Taliban Use Pakistani City as Hub for Lucrative Organized Crime,” New York Times, August 29, 2009.

119

“In Pakistan, Radio Amplifies Terror of Taliban,” New York Times, January 25, 2009; Kamila Hyat, “Debacle in

Swat” (op-ed), News (Karachi), January 22, 2009.

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The 2009 Swat Accord and Reactions

By early 2009, the KPk chief minister was calling the Swat problem a full-blown rebellion

against the state, and President Zardari himself conceded that militant forces had established a

“huge” presence in his country. Shortly after, Zardari reportedly agreed in principle to restore

Sharia law in the Swat region in a bid to undercut any popular support for the uprising there.120 In

addition to bringing Islamic law to the entire Malakand division of the KPk (including Swat), the

accord, announced in February of that year, included requirements that the Taliban recognize the

writ of the state, give up their heavy weapons and refrain from displaying personal weapons in

public, denounce suicide attacks, and cooperate with local police forces. In return for such

gestures, the government agreed to gradually withdraw the army from the region. Pakistanis

appeared to strongly support the government’s move.121 In April, Zardari signed a regulation

imposing Islamic law after Parliament passed a resolution recommending such a move.

A White House official was critical of the Sharia deal in Swat, saying that solutions to Pakistan’s

security problems “don’t include less democracy and less human rights.” A State Department

spokesman emphasized that the United States was “very concerned” and maintained a view that

“violent extremists need to be confronted.”122 Pakistan’s lead diplomat in Washington sought to

assure a skeptical American audience that his government was not offering any concessions or

ceding any ground to the Taliban, but rather was “attempting to drive a wedge” between Al

Qaeda and Taliban militants on the one hand, and an indigenous Swati movement on the other, as

part of a “pragmatic” strategy “to turn our native populations against the terrorists.”123

Still, most observers saw the deal as a blatant capitulation and unprecedented surrender of

territory to a militant minority beyond the FATA, and as part of a disturbing broader trend. 124 The

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan marked it as a day of “humiliating submission” by the

government.125 A senior independent Pakistani analyst and former army general said the

government “has yielded under compulsion at a time when Talibanization is sweeping the country

and overwhelming the state.” Even a senior Pakistani Islamist politician, told Parliament that the

Taliban were threatening the Pakistani capital. The peace deal was particularly alarming for India,

where officials feared it would further exacerbate the existing Islamist militant threat they face. 126

120

“Pakistani Violence Intensifies As Policy Wobbles,” Reuters, February 10, 2009; “Taliban is in ‘Huge’ Amounts of

Pakistan: Zardari,” Reuters, February 13, 2009; “Pakistan Restores Islamic Law to Pacify Swat Valley,” Reuters,

February 16, 2009.

121

“Secret Details of Swat Peace Accord,” News (Karachi), April 11, 2009. According to one opinion survey taken in

March 2009, an impressive 80% of Pakistani respondents supported the government’s decision to sign the Swat accord,

with nearly that percentage believing the deal would bring peace to the region. More alarmingly, however, a majority

(56%) also expressed support for potential future Taliban demands to impose Sharia law in major Pakistani cities (see

http://www.iri.org/newsreleases/2009-05-11-Pakistan.asp).

122

“US Criticizes Islamic Law Deal in Pakistan,” Associated Press, April 14, 2009; State Department’s April 12, 2009,

release at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/04/121748.htm.

123

Husain Haqqani, “We’re Not Ceding Ground” (op-ed), USA Today, February 19, 2009.

124

See, for example, Shuja Nawaz, “ Wariness in Pakistan” (op-ed), Boston Globe, February 22, 2009; Ahmed Rashid,

“Pakistan’s Deal With the Devil” (op-ed), Los Angeles Times, February 24, 2009.

125

HRCP press release, April 14, 2009. London-based Amnesty International warned that the deal could legitimize

human rights abuses that have taken place as Taliban influence increases. New York-based Human Rights Watch called

the move a “grave threat” to the rights of women, especially (AI press release, February 16, 2009; HRW press release,

April 15, 2009).

126

Talat Masood, “Implications of the Deal” (op-ed), News (Karachi), April 20, 2009; “Taliban Nearing Capital, Warns

Fazl,” News (Karachi), April 23, 2009; “Pakistan’s Swat Offensive Leaves India Skeptical,” Reuters, May 18, 2009.

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Accord Fails, Army Moves In

As with past iterations of truce deals in the nearby FATA, the Swat accord was seen to give

militants breathing space and an ability to consolidate their gains. Reports immediately arose that

Taliban forces were moving into the valley by the thousands to establish training camps in the

forests around Mingora, Swat’s largest town. 127 Fears that, rather than being placated by the truce,

militants would use their Swat positions as a springboard from which to launch further forays

were quickly confirmed. In April 2009, Taliban forces moved into the neighboring Buner district,

now only 60 miles from the Pakistani capital. Local tribal militias put up resistance, but were

quickly overwhelmed, and the Pakistani army had no local presence. Within two weeks Taliban

forces were said to have taken full control of Buner. 128

In response, Pakistani paramilitary troops supported by helicopter gunships engaged militants in

Buner and Lower Dir. At the same time, the army accused the militants of “gross violations” of

the accord.129 Pakistani commandos were airdropped into Buner’s main town and regained

control, but heavy fighting forced many hundreds of civilians to flee. The fighting pitted about

15,000 government troops against an estimated 4,000-5,000 militants.

As militants appeared to consolidate their hold on large swaths of the KPk, alarm grew in

Washington that the Pakistani government may have lacked the will to sustain the fight. Joint

Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen expressed being “gravely concerned” about the progress made

by militants, and he indentified Pakistan’s simultaneous pursuit of peace deals and military

operations as “strategic moves” that were, from an American perspective, “at cross purposes.”130

Secretary of Defense Gates concluded that the Swat agreement’s “failure,” followed by militant

movements into neighboring Buner, was a “real wakeup call for the Pakistani government.”131

Heavy combat raged in May 2009, with militants putting up strong resistance. When Taliban

forces returned in large numbers to Mingora, Swat’s main city, army leaders reportedly resolved

to finally abandon negotiations and press ahead with a larger offensive, this time with greater

support from the Pakistani public.132 By the close of June 2009, the army was claiming to have

cleared the last remaining Taliban stronghold in Swat. By November, police patrols were a

common sight in Mingora, signaling a return of relative normality to the Valley, and TSNM leader

Maulana Fazlullah reportedly fled to Afghanistan.133

127

“Truce in Pakistan May Mean Leeway for Taliban,” New York Times, March 6, 2009.

“Pakistani Taliban Begin Imposing Rule in New Area,” Reuters, April 13, 2009; “Buner Falls to Swat Taliban,”

Dawn (Karachi), April 22, 2009.

129

Inter-Services Public Relations press release, May 2, 2009, at http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=tpress_release&date=2009/5/2.

130

“Taliban Advance, Pakistan’s Wavering Worry Obama Team,” Washington Post; “U.S. Questions Pakistan’s Will

to Stop Taliban,” New York Times, both April 24, 2009; “DoD News Briefing With Adm. Mullen From the Pentagon

Briefing Room, Arlington, Va.,” May 4, 2009.

131

“Interview With Secretary Gates,” CNN.com, May 3, 2009.

132

“The Taliban Tightens Hold in Pakistan’s Swat Region,” Washington Post, May 5, 2009; “Pakistani Army Posed for

New Push Into Swat,” New York Times, May 6, 2009.

133

See the June 4, 2009, press release at http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&date=2009/6/4;

“Pakistani Troops Clear Taliban Stronghold in Swat,” Reuters, July 1, 2009; “Police Return to Former Taliban Haven,”

BBC News, November 15, 2009.

128

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A senior Pakistani official reportedly claimed the two-month-long Swat offensive left more than

3,500 militants dead, but Islamabad’s official body count stood at roughly half that number. No

top Taliban commanders are known to have been killed or captured and, by many accounts, the

military succeeded only in establishing control of Malakand’s urban centers and main roadways.

Particularly skeptical observers suspect that the Pakistani military has vastly over-reported

Taliban casualties in a possible effort to impress an American audience and so continue to receive

large assistance packages.134 Swat residents apparently continue to rely on the military to

maintain order and continue to feel insecure in the face of a lingering threat from pro-Taliban

militants that the still struggling police forces have found difficult to neutralize. Moreover, efforts

to repair the shattered regional economy have yielded limited results and cold require at least $1

billion in state funding. As of late 2010, more than one year after most displaced citizens returned

home, government services remain almost entirely absent.135

Pakistan and the Afghan Insurgency136

An ongoing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and its connection to developments in Pakistan

remain matters of serious concern to U.S. policy makers. It is widely held that success in

Afghanistan cannot come without the close engagement and cooperation of Pakistan, and that the

key to stabilizing Afghanistan is to improve the longstanding animosity between Islamabad and

Kabul. In late 2008, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen said he viewed Pakistan and

Afghanistan as “inextricably linked in a common insurgency” and had directed that maps of the

Afghan “battle space” be redrawn to include the tribal areas of western Pakistan. 137 As Presidentelect, Barack Obama asserted that Afghanistan cannot be “solved” without “solving Pakistan” and

working more effectively with that country.138 Numerous other senior U.S. officials—both

civilian and military—share the view that Pakistan and Afghanistan are best considered as a

single “problem set” in the context of U.S. interests.139 This conceptual mating of the two

countries was not well received in Pakistan; President Zardari was himself openly critical of a

strategy linking “AfPak,” saying the two countries were too distinct from one another to be

“lumped together for any reason.” Pakistani military officials echoed the sentiment. 140

Still, most independent analysts agree that, so long as Taliban forces enjoy “sanctuary” in

Pakistan, their Afghan insurgency will persist (see Figure 2). Obama Administration intelligence

officials continue to inform Congress of a crucial Pakistani link to the Afghan insurgency.

According to former U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, testifying before a

House panel in early 2010, “The safe haven that Afghanistan insurgents have in Pakistan is the

group’s most important outside support. Disrupting that safe haven won’t be sufficient by itself to

134

“Pakistan’s Victories Over the Taliban: Less Than Meets the Eye,” Time, June 1, 2009; “Taliban Losses Are No

Sure Gain for Pakistanis,” New York Times, June 28, 2009.

135

“Pakistan Faces Tough Task Rejuvenating Battered Swat,” Reuters, March 25, 2010; “Taliban ‘Reappear’ in Swat

Valley,” BBC News, April 29, 2010; “Pakistan Slow to Rebuild Swat Valley a Year After Offensive,” New York Times,

November 13, 2010.

136

See also CRS Report RL30588, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy.

137

Statement before the House Armed Services Committee, September 10, 2008.

138

See the December 7, 2008, “Meet the Press” transcript at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28097635.

139

“Petraeus: Afghan, Pakistan Problems Are Really One,” Associated Press, January 9, 2009; “National Security

Advisor Say Pakistan is Top U.S. Challenge,” Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2009.

140

“Zardari Rejects Obama’s AfPak Strategy,” Financial Times (London), September 10, 2009; “Army Expresses

Reservation Over Af-Pak Policy,” Dawn (Karachi), September 16, 2009.

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defeat the insurgency, but disrupting insurgent presence in Pakistan is a necessary condition for

making substantial progress.141

National Intelligence Estimates on Pakistan and Afghanistan issued in early December 2010

reportedly took a bleak view of the situation and suggested that U.S. success in Afghanistan was

not possible so long as insurgents continued to find safe haven in western Pakistan.142 As recently

as January 2011, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen said, “It is absolutely critical that the

safe havens in Pakistan get shut down. We cannot succeed in Afghanistan without that.”143 Some

independent analysts echo the claim that targeting Afghan Taliban leaders in Baluchistan is a

requirement for curbing the Afghan insurgency. 144

Afghan officials openly accuse Pakistani officials of aiding and abetting terrorism inside

Afghanistan. Pakistan’s mixed record on battling Islamist extremism includes an ongoing

apparent tolerance of Afghan Taliban elements operating from its territory. The “Kandahari

clique” reportedly operates not from Pakistan’s tribal areas, but from populated areas in and

around the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta.145 Many analysts believe that Pakistan’s

intelligence services have long known the whereabouts of these Afghan Taliban leadership

elements and likely even maintain active contacts with them at some level as part of a hedge

strategy in the region. Some reports indicate that elements of Pakistan’s major intelligence agency

and military forces aid the Taliban and other extremists forces as a matter of policy. Such support

may even include providing training and fire support for Taliban offensives (see also “Questions

About Pakistan’s Main Intelligence Agency” below). 146

Pakistani leaders insist that Afghan stability is a vital Pakistani interest. They ask interested

partners to enhance their own efforts to control the border region by undertaking an expansion of

military deployments and checkposts on the Afghan side of the border, by engaging more robust

intelligence sharing, and by continuing to supply the counterinsurgency equipment requested by

Pakistan. Yet, despite efforts by both the Islamabad and Kabul governments to secure it, the

shared border remains highly porous, with corrupt border guards allowing more-or-less free

movement of militants and smugglers.147 Pakistan has contributed about $330 million to Afghan

development and reconstruction since 2001.

141

Transcript: “Senate Select Intelligence Committee Holds Hearing on Current and Projected Threats to the United

States,” February 2, 2010.

142

“Afghan, Pakistan Intelligence Reports Bleak,” Associated Press, December 11, 2010.

143

See the Pentagon’s January 12, 2011, transcript at http://www.jcs.mil/speech.aspx?ID=1518.

144

See, for example, Seth Jones, “Take the War to Pakistan” (op-ed), New York Times, December 4, 2009.

145

Mukhtar Khan, “Quetta: The Headquarters of the Afghan Taliban,” CTC Sentinel 2,5, May 2009.

146

See, for example, “Killing Ourselves in Afghanistan,” Salon.com, March 10, 2008. One U.S. military officer

claimed that Pakistani military forces flew multiple helicopter missions to resupply Taliban fighters inside

Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province in 2007. The Islamabad government angrily denied the claims and a former top U.S.

military commander in Afghanistan cast doubt on their veracity. In another example, an October 2008 press report

claimed that British officials covered up evidence that a Taliban commander killed in Afghanistan in 2007 was in fact a

Pakistani military officer (“Pakistani Forces Helped Taliban in 2007: U.S. Lt. Col.,” Defense News, September 22,

2008; “Taliban Leader Killed by SAS Was Pakistan Officer,” London Sunday Times, October 12, 2008).

147

See http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2008/July/PR_208_08.htm; “Even Where Pakistani Law Exists,

Taliban Find a Porous Border,” New York Times, February 5, 2010.

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Pakistani Views on U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan

Given Pakistan’s pivotal role in attaining U.S. regional goals, President Obama’s December 1,

2009, policy announcement on Afghanistan had major ramifications for Pakistan. The extent to

which the Pakistani government was consulted on this issue is not clear, but the key concern in

both Washington and Islamabad appears to have been that any new strategy in Afghanistan does

nothing to further destabilize Pakistan. In a cautious response to President Obama’s speech,

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry reaffirmed Islamabad’s commitment to uproot regional terrorism and

further stabilize Afghanistan, and also expressed a desire to ensure that the new U.S. strategy

would cause “no adverse fallout on Pakistan.”148 The Pakistani Army Chief did welcome the mis2010 appointment of General David Petraeus to lead the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan,

calling him a known quantity who “has a full understanding of Pakistan’s perspective and [who]

is acutely appreciative of Pakistan’s sacrifices.”149

Many independent analysts identify problems with the U.S. Afghanistan strategy. Primary among

these has been a perception that, with the announcement of a July 2011 starting date for U.S.

withdrawal, the United States was confounding its allies in the region and perhaps preparing to

leave them to their own devices.150 Pakistanis are also concerned that any expansion of the war to

include more operations inside Pakistan could further destabilize an already shaky political and

economic climate, and even undermine already thin public support for Pakistan’s role. The U.S.

government maintains pressure on Pakistan to expand its military efforts against Islamist militants

in western Pakistan on the assumption that such action is needed to ensure the strategy’s

effectiveness. Islamabad has consistently rejected such external prodding, while also undertaking

more energetic military operations. The Pakistani government has been deeply skeptical about the

expansion of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, fearing that these would push militants

across the border into Pakistan’s Baluchistan province and put untenable pressure on its already

taxed security forces. There is little persuasive evidence that this has occurred. 151 Nevertheless,

fears of a spillover of conflict, a possible shift of U.S.-launched drone attacks to include

Pakistan’s southwestern regions, and other signs of expanded U.S. operations in Pakistan leave

many Pakistani observers deeply wary of U.S. policy.152

At the same time, Islamabad is discomfited by signs that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is not

long-term and that the international community may “abandon” the region in ways damaging to

148

See the Foreign Ministry’s December 2, 2009, release at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2009/Dec/

PR_440_09.htm. See also “Pakistanis Voice Concerns About Obama’s New Afghanistan Plan,” Washington Post,

December 3, 2009.

149

See the June 30, 2010, Inter-Services Public Relations release at http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=tpress_release&date=2010/6/30.

150

See the comments of several senior experts at “Coming Up Short on Pakistan,” Council on Foreign Relations,

December 14, 2009, at http://www.cfr.org/publication/20967/coming_up_short_on_pakistan.html.

151

In December, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mullen said, “[I]n fact, there really hasn’t been a significant migration or

push, if you will, into Baluchistan” (see the December 8, 2009, Pentagon transcript at http://www.jcs.mil/speech.aspx?

ID=1286).

152

“Pakistan to US: Don’t Surge in Afghanistan, Talk to Taliban,” Christian Science Monitor, November 22, 2009;

“C.I.A. Authorized to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan,” New York Times, December 4, 2009; “Between the Lines, an

Expansion in Pakistan,” New York Times, December 2, 2009. Even some Western analysts see the NATO mission in

Afghanistan as the single greatest cause of radicalization among Pakistanis, arguing that the United States is viewed by

many there as an occupying force and urging reduced U.S. presence in the region as a necessary step in preventing the

outright collapse of the Pakistani state (see, for example, Anatol Lieven, “How the Afghan Counterinsurgency

Threatens Pakistan,” Nation, December 16, 2010).

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Pakistani interests, as was seen to be the case during the 1990s. Many analysts see President

Obama’s explicit call for U.S. troop withdrawals to begin in July 2011 as a signal to the Pakistani

(and Afghan) government and Taliban elements, alike, that the United States was most concerned

with an exit strategy and may not make a long-term commitment to stabilizing the region. This

could even allow the Afghan Taliban to retreat into Pakistan and wait out the American “surge.”

According to the Pakistani foreign minister himself, “The Administration’s withdrawal date was

music to the ears of the militants and terrorists.”153

The Obama Administration at least partially addressed these concerns by offering an “expanded

strategic partnership” with Pakistan to include additional military, economic, and intelligence

cooperation, along with assurances that the United States would remain engaged in Afghanistan

and was planning no early withdrawal from that country. The Administration vows to assist

Pakistan in the political, economic, and security realms, with the latter to include helping Pakistan

to shift its military from a conventional posture to one oriented toward counterinsurgency.154

For Islamabad, another key issue is the role the Washington plays in triangular relations between

Pakistan, India, and the United States. India’s presence in Afghanistan exacerbates Pakistani fears

of encirclement. 155 Some analysts insist that resolution of outstanding Pakistan-India disputes,

especially that over Kashmir, is a prerequisite for gaining Pakistan’s full cooperation in efforts to

stabilize Afghanistan. Islamabad remains wary of India’s diplomatic and reconstruction presence

in Afghanistan, viewing it as a strategic threat to Pakistan, and is concerned that progress in the

U.S.-India “strategic partnership” may come at serious geostrategic cost for Pakistan. President

Obama did not mention India in his December 2009 speech, but the next day the U.S.

Ambassador to India issued a statement saying that the core U.S. goal in Afghanistan and

Pakistan is an “aspiration we share with India,” and declared that the United States values “the

positive role India continues to play in the region, including its significant humanitarian aid to

Afghanistan.”156 According to many Indian analysts, official Pakistan’s unstated aims with regard

to Afghanistan are to maintain a Taliban sanctuary in western Pakistan, keep Afghanistan’s

security forces small in size, and curtail “natural” India-Afghanistan links.157

The January 2010 London Conference

When leaders from 60 countries met in London in late January 2010 to discuss Afghanistan

stabilization efforts, Pakistani officials expressed a keen and largely unexpected interest in

promoting Afghan peace through a mediator role in any anticipated negotiations. In fact,

Islamabad had for some time been pressing the U.S. government to seek negotiation with Taliban

figures. Pakistani leaders believe they could serve as effective brokers in such potential contacts.

Even some Pakistani analysts contend that, until the United States develops a strategy that

recognizes Pakistan’s “preeminent role” in Afghanistan, tensions between Washington and

153

“Pakistan Fears It May Pay Price of U.S. Surge,” Reuters, December 3, 2009; Trudy Rubin, “How Players View

Obama Plan” (op-ed), Philadelphia Inquirer, December 6, 2009; Qureshi quoted in “Pakistani Minister: Obama’s Plan

Emboldens Terrorists,” Washington Examiner, March 12, 2010.

154

“Press Briefing by Senior Administration Officials on the President’s West Point Speech,” White House Press

Release, December 1, 2009, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-briefing-senior-administrationofficials-presidents-west-point-speech.

155

“India Befriends Afghanistan, Irking Pakistan,” Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2009.

156

U.S. Embassy Press Release, December 2, 2009, at http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/pr120209.html.

157

See, for example, “Cornered in Kabul,” India Today (Delhi), March 15, 2010.

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Islamabad will persist.158 The Pakistani offer to mediate is controversial, given Afghans’

longstanding mistrust of their eastern neighbors, yet could also prove fruitful due to Islamabad’s

historical links with the Taliban. Some analysts attributed the Pakistani shift to “a combination of

self-interest and fear,” with Islamabad hoping that a future power-sharing arrangement in Kabul

that includes the Taliban would be friendlier to Pakistani interests. Still, some U.S. officials

responded favorably, with then-Central Command chief General Petraeus welcoming Pakistan’s

“constructive involvement” in reaching out to Afghan Taliban elements open to reconciliation. 159

Pakistani Moves Against the Afghan Taliban and Potential Role in

Negotiations

Many independent analysts believe that no sustainable political settlement can be reached in

Afghanistan without the participation of Pakistan. The Islamabad government considers itself to

be indispensible to successful peace talks in Afghanistan.160 In the opening months of 2010, the

Afghan Taliban’s top military commander and key aide to Mullah Omar, Mullah Abdul Ghani

Baradar, was captured in a joint ISI-CIA operation in Karachi. Baradar’s arrest, which at first

appears to have been the result of happenstance rather than design, may have signaled a change in

Pakistani strategy, a new willingness to pursue Afghan Taliban leaders long believed to find

sanctuary on Pakistani soil, and newly intensive bilateral intelligence collaboration between the

United States and Pakistan.161 Within days, two other Taliban “shadow governors” of northern

Afghan provinces were captured in Pakistani cities, and a fourth senior Taliban figure arrested in

the NWFP, bolstering the perception that a new Pakistani strategy was at hand. By one

accounting, Pakistani authorities arrested seven of the Afghan Taliban’s top fifteen leaders during

the month of February.162 The developments served to confirm the Afghan Taliban’s presence in

Karachi, where a fifth notable figure—the finance minister under Taliban rule—was reported

captured in March, and the new pressure may be forcing other Taliban leaders to spread out into

cities across Pakistan in an effort to evade capture.163

Skeptical observers have contended that U.S. officials should not view the ISI’s new moves

against Afghan Taliban elements as indicative of a major strategic shift in Pakistan; they consider

Pakistan’s geopolitical incentives to preserve the Taliban remaining unaltered. By some accounts,

Pakistani elements “orchestrated” the Baradar arrest to facilitate talks with “willing” Taliban

commanders so as to pave the way for reconciliation negotiations. Cynics contend that the ISI’s

158

“Despite U.S. Pressures, Pakistan Continues to Follow Its Own Road,” McClatchy News, October 22, 2009; Ejaz

Haider, “Turn the Page,” Friday Times (Lahore), October 30, 2009.

159

“Pakistan Seeks Role as Mediator in Possible Taliban-Afghanistan Peace Talks,” Washington Post, January 28,

2010 (Pakistan later expanded its offer to include assisting in the training of Afghan security forces); “Petraeus Lauds

Pakistan Appeal to Afghan Taliban,” Reuters, February 3, 2010.

160

“Pakistan Says It Is Key to Taliban Peace Talks,” Associated Press, October 12, 2010.

161

“Holbrooke Hails Pakistan-U.S. Collaboration on Taliban,” New York Times, February 18, 2010. A reported CIA

request to take custody of Baradar was rejected by Pakistani authorities, who did not allow U.S. interrogators access to

the Taliban leader for some two weeks. Pakistani officials later said they would hand Baradar over to Afghan

authorities, but did not provide a timeframe for the move (“CIA Said to Seek Custody of a Seized Taliban Chief,” Los

Angeles Times, February 20, 2010; “Pakistan to Hand Taliban Chief to Kabul,” Financial Times (London), February

24, 2010).

162

“Captured Taliban Chief Saying Little,” Associated Press, February 18, 2010; “Pakistan Arrests More Afghan

Taliban—Why the About-Face?,” Christian Science Monitor, February 18, 2010; “Half of Afghanistan Taliban

Leadership Arrested in Pakistan,” Christian Science Monitor, February 24, 2010.

163

“Arrests Force Taliban Flight,” Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2010.

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motives may simply have been to thwart any anticipated negotiations.164 Unnamed Pakistani

officials even later changed their story, saying that Baradar’s capture had been intentional as a

means of shutting down secret peace talks he had been conducting with Kabul, talks that excluded

Pakistan.165 Analysts also point to continuing Pakistani inaction against the Haqqani group, the

LeT, and other militant anti-India elements as evidence that Pakistan’s security services are

continuing to manipulate and make use of Islamist extremists as part of their regional strategy.166

There are conflicting reports on whether or not direct access to and interrogations of Baradar have

produced useful intelligence for U.S. officials.167

In June 2010, Pakistan launched an effort to broker a reconciliation between the Kabul

government and the Haqqanis, perhaps the most active and dangerous of Afghan insurgent

groups. This initiative sparked concerns that Islamabad will seek to exploit the political

situation—both in the region and in Washington—to create a political settlement giving Pakistan

maximal influence in a post-conflict Kabul. Warming relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan

are seen by some to heighten the risk that the United States will be largely omitted from a

settlement arranged by Islamabad and Kabul. Senior U.S. officials have expressed skepticism

about pursuit of any settlement that included a future role for Taliban elements. The British

government more clearly sees Pakistan having a key role to play in brokering talks between

Afghan militants and the Kabul government. 168

In October, NATO facilitated the secret travel of at least three Quetta Shura Taliban figures and a

representative of the Haqqani network from Pakistan to Kabul for meetings with senior Afghan

government officials. It is unclear whether Pakistani officials were included in this process; some

reports indicated they were not, but others described ISI officials participating directly. Yet, in a

sign that Pakistan’s “double game” was continuing, there also were reports that the ISI was

simultaneously pressuring Taliban field commanders to step up their fight against NATO

forces.169 A State Department spokesman acknowledged that talks were taking place as part of an

Afghan-led process and asserted that Pakistan “does have a legitimate role to play in supporting

this process.”170

164

“How Significant is Mullah Baradar’s Arrest?,” BBC News, February 16, 2010 “Pakistan’s Arrest of Top Taliban

Undermines Afghanistan,” Time (online), March 22, 2010.

165

“Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban Leader’s Arrest,” New York Times, August 22, 2010.

166

See, for example, Ashley Tellis, “Baradar, Pakistan, and the Afghan Taliban: What Gives?,” Carnegie Endowment

for International Peace Policy Outlook, March 2010; Steve Coll, “Don’t Look Back,” New Yorker, February 22, 2010;

David Kenner, “Three Huge Ways Pakistan Still Isn’t Cooperating,” Foreign Policy (online), February 18, 2010. See

also “U.S. Doubts Islamabad’s Will to Pursue Militants,” Financial Times (London), March 10, 2010

167

“Taliban No. 2 Interrogations Yield Useful Intel: U.S.,” Reuters, April 20, 2010; “Pakistan Seen Restricting Data

Obtained From Mullah,” Washington Times, May 18, 2010.

168

“Persuading Key Taliban Faction is a Tough Sell,” Washington Post, June 30, 2010; “Pakistan is Said to Pursue an

Afghanistan Foothold,” New York Times, June 25, 2010; “Pakistan’s Plans on Afghan Peace Leave U.S. Wary,” New

York Times, June 28, 2010; “Pakistan Can Help Broker Afghan Talks – Hague,” Reuters, June 23, 2010.

169

“Taliban Elite, Aided by NATO, Join Talks for Afghan Peace,” New York Times, October 19, 2010; “Pakistan Left

Out of Afghan-Taliban Talks, Official Says,” Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2010; “U.S. Backs Afghan

Reconciliation, No Comment on Talks,” Reuters, October 6, 2010; “Pakistan Urges On Taliban,” Wall Street Journal,

October 7, 2010. Some Afghan officials have been explicit in blaming Pakistan for allowing the insurgency to continue

as a means of expanding Islamabad’s “sphere of influence” in Afghanistan (see, for example, Rangin Dadfar Spanta,

“Pakistan is the Afghan War’s Real Aggressor” (op-ed), Washington Post, August 23, 2010).

170

See the October 20, 2010, transcript at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/10/149796.htm.

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U.S./NATO Supply Routes

With roughly three-quarters of supplies for U.S. troops in Afghanistan moving either through or

over Pakistan, insurgents in 2008 began more focused attempts to interdict NATO supply lines,

especially near the historic Khyber Pass connecting Peshawar with Jalalabad, Afghanistan, but

also to include the route from Karachi to Kandahar, which runs through Quetta and the Chaman

border crossing. Such efforts have left thousands of transport and fuel trucks destroyed, and

numerous Pakistani drivers dead.171 Near the end of 2008, the Pakistani military reported

launching a major offensive in the Khyber agency aimed at securing the supply route, which was

temporarily closed during the height of the fighting. Despite the Pakistani effort to secure the

gateway to the Khyber Pass, sporadic interdiction attacks continue to date.172

U.S. military officials claim that attacks on supply routes have had a negligible effect on combat

operations in Afghanistan, with less than 2% of the cargo moving from the Karachi port into

Afghanistan being lost to “pilferage,” and with stockpiled supplies that could last 60-90 days in

the event of a severing of the supply chain. 173 Nevertheless, in the latter half of 2008 the U.S.

military began testing alternative routes, concentrating especially on lines from Central Asia and

Russia. Moscow at first would allow only non-lethal NATO supplies to Afghanistan to cross

Russian territory, and later agreed to allow U.S. troops and weapons to fly into Afghanistan

through Russian airspace as sought by NATO.174 By mid-2010, this “northern distribution

network” was carrying well over half of NATO’s total supplies (not including all military

equipment).175 Attacks on NATO trucks have caused transportation fee rates to more than double

since 2006, but using the northern distribution network is still said to cost 2.5 times as much as

the Pakistan route. 176

Corruption is a major factor in moving cargo through Pakistan. A June 2010 report from a House

subcommittee’s majority staff found extensive evidence of extortion and corruption along the

supply line, especially with regard to the Chaman crossing near Quetta, where a “Colonel Abdul

Razziq,” a local tribal chief, is said to wield “near total control” and demand a major share of all

171

An official from a Pakistani transportation association has claimed that as many as 6,000 trucks and oil tankers have

been lost to insurgent attacks since 2002 (“Pakistan Pays Price for Afghan War Cargo Amid Taliban Attacks,”

Bloomberg, July 7, 2010).

172

The Torkham crossing was closed by Pakistani authorities after late September 2010 attacks on Pakistani territory

by NATO helicopters. Officially, the closure sparked by security concerns, but most observers concluded the Pakistani

government was acting in protest and to demonstrate its ability to restrict NATO’s Afghan supply lines. By early

October, scores of trucks and oil tankers had been destroyed by apparent militant attacks. Pakistan reopened the

Torkham crossing after ten days.

173

“US Plays Down Impact of Convoy Attacks in Pakistan,” Reuters, December 8, 2008. In April 2009, Centcom

Commander Gen. Petraeus told a House panel that between February 15 and March 15 of that year roughly 3,600

NATO cargo containers went through the Khyber Pass and only about 1% of these was damaged or destroyed in transit

(“House Armed Services Committees Holds Hearing on the New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” CQ

Transcripts, April 2, 2009).

174

“Pentagon Seeks New Afghan Supply Routes,” Financial Times (London), September 23, 2008; “U.S. Secures New

Supply Routes to Afghanistan,” New York Times, January 21, 2009; “Russia Lets U.S. Fly Troops, Weapons to

Afghanistan,” Reuters, July 6, 2009.

175

Statement of Gen. David Petraeus, “Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing on the Situation in

Afghanistan,” CQ Transcripts, June 16, 2010.

176

“Pakistan Pays Price for Afghan War Cargo Amid Taliban Attacks,” Bloomberg, July 7, 2010.

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cargo that transits the border.177 Moreover, there have been suspicions that corrupt trucking

contractors have actually destroyed their own vehicles. 178

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan

Ammonium nitrate (AN) is widely-used fertilizer that also has commercial uses as an explosives

precursor. The great majority of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used by Islamist insurgents

fighting in Afghanistan employ AN and, since the Kabul government’s January 2010 ban on the

substance, nearly all AN in Afghanistan is believed to arrive through illicit transshipments from

neighboring Pakistan. The U.S. government is urging Islamabad to adjust Pakistani national laws

to restrict access to AN there or, short of that, to encourage Pakistani law enforcement and border

security agencies to be more active and effective in efforts to prevent its movement into

Afghanistan. The U.S. government’s efforts to counter the growing threat of IEDs in Afghanistan

fall into three main categories: (1) diplomatic initiatives; (2) law enforcement initiatives; and (3)

science and technology efforts. Washington’s efforts are led by the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised

Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), staff of the State Department’s Special

Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP), and staff of the Department of Homeland

Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. 179

Other Recent Developments in Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations

Over the course of 2010, Pakistan-Afghanistan relations showed multiple signs of improvement.

In a public show of friendship, Prime Minister Gilani hosted Afghan President Karzai in

Islamabad in March, but it is not clear if Karzai’s widely suspected mission—to solicit Pakistani

help in pursuing conciliatory gestures toward the Taliban—was successful, and serious policy

differences appeared to remain. 180 Bilateral relations appeared to improve following a series of

mid-2010 discussions on ending the Afghan insurgency that included Pakistan’s ISI chief making

an unprecedented visit to Kabul. General Kayani himself also met with President Karzai in the

Afghan capital.181 In July, the two countries inked a cross-border trade agreement after decades of

on-and-off negotiations. A concrete and unprecedented sign of a changed bilateral dynamic came

with news that Karzai had agreed to send a small group of Afghan military officers to train in

Pakistan. By opening numerous new border crossings and providing Afghans with access to

major Pakistani ports, the pact could boost bilateral trade and facilitate regional peace. Yet it does

not allow Afghan truckers to transit through Pakistan to India. Still, it was warmly welcomed by

Washington, where a State Department spokesman called it “one of the most important, concrete

achievements between the two countries in 45 years.”182

177

“Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan,” Report of the Majority Staff

of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, June 2010.

178

“Nato Contractors ‘Attacking Own Vehicles’ in Pakistan,” BBC News, October 6, 2010.

179

Author interviews with State Department officials, November 2010; “U.S. Presses to Stop Flow of Bomb Item to

Afghanistan,” New York Times, November 15, 2010.

180

“Afghanistan and Pakistan Pledge Cooperation,” New York Times, March 11, 2010.

181

“New Turn in Afghan, Pakistani Relations,” Washington Post, June 19, 2010.

182

“Some Afghan Officers to Get Training in Pakistan,” Washington Post, July 1, 2010; “Pakistan, Afghanistan Sign

New Pact,” Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2010; State Department’s July 19, 2010, transcript at http://www.state.gov/r/

pa/prs/dpb/2010/07/144840.htm.

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In September, President Karzai again visited Islamabad, where he and President Zardari agreed to

strengthen the bilateral “partnership” through increased institutional engagement; greater security

cooperation; expanded transit, trade and investment; and mutual infrastructure and energy

development, among others. Prime Minister Gilani was in Kabul in December, at which time he

and the Afghan leader reiterated their mutual intentions to further accelerate bilateral initiatives in

a range of issue-areas.183 A resulting Joint Statement included agreement to further increase

counterterrorism economic cooperation.184 In January 2011, the Karzai government sent a highlevel “peace delegation” to Islamabad led by former Afghan President Burahuddin Rabbani,

reportedly in an effort to reassure Pakistani leaders, including General Kayani, that the current

Kabul government is friendly toward Pakistan and is ready to negotiate with the Taliban.185

Warming Pakistan-Afghanistan ties tend to elicit anxiety in other regional capitals, especially

New Delhi and Tehran, where there are significant fears of a future Afghanistan heavily

influenced by Islamabad and with Taliban elements in possession of a governance role. 186

Pro-Taliban Militants in the Tribal Agencies

Fighting between Pakistani government security forces and religious militants intensified in 2008.

Shortly after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s December 2007 assassination, the Pakistan

army undertook a major operation against militants in the South Waziristan agency assumed loyal

to Baitullah Mehsud, who was named as a suspect in that killing. Occasionally fierce fighting

continued in that area throughout 2008 and into 2009, when a full-blown ground operation was

launched to take control of the region. The apparent impunity with which Mehsud was able to act

caused serious alarm in Washington, where officials worried that the power and influence of his

loyalists were only growing. 187 Mehsud was killed in a mid-2009 drone attack, but his “Pakistani

Taliban” has fought on under new leadership, while also threatening to take their fight to

American shores. Analysts also continue to view Pakistan’s tribal areas as being a crucial safe

haven for continued Al Qaeda plotting and training. 188 An April 2009 assessment by the FATA

Secretariat calculated that conflict in the tribal areas alone has cost the Pakistani government

more than $2 billion.189

The Pakistani Taliban

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) emerged as a coherent grouping in late 2007 under Baitullah

Mehsud’s leadership. This “Pakistani Taliban” is said to have representatives from each of

Pakistan’s seven tribal agencies, as well as from many of the “settled” districts abutting the FATA.

There appears to be no reliable evidence that the TTP receives funding from external states. The

group’s principal aims are threefold: (1) to unite disparate pro-Taliban groups active in the FATA

183

See the September 16, 2010, Joint Statement at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2010/Sept/js_16.htm;

December 5, 2010, Joint Statement at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2010/Dec/PR_299.htm.

184

See the December 5, 2010, Statement text at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2010/Dec/PR_299.htm.

185

“Afghanistan Looks to Pakistan for Help With Taliban,” Christian Science Monitor, January 5, 2011.

186

“India, Iran Distrustful of Renewed Afghan-Pakistan Ties,” Washington Post, July 23, 2010.

187

“Taliban Leader Flaunts Power Inside Pakistan,” New York Times, June 2, 2008.

188

See, for example, Barbara Sude, “Al Qaeda Central,” New American Foundation Counterterrorism Strategy

Initiative Policy Paper, February 2010.

189

“Cost of Conflict in FATA,” FATA Secretariat Planning and Development Department, April 2009, at

http://www.fata.gov.pk/downloads/costconflict.pdf.

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and KPk; (2) to assist the Afghan Taliban in its conflict across the Durand Line; and (3) to

establish a Taliban-style Islamic state in Pakistan and perhaps beyond. As an umbrella group, the

TTP is home to tribes and sub-tribes, some with long-held mutual antagonism. It thus suffers

from factionalism. In 2008, the Islamabad government formally banned the TTP due to its

involvement in a series of suicide attacks in Pakistan. After the August 2009 death of Baitullah,

leadership passed to Hakimullah Mehsud (no relation). Upon the October 2009 launch of major

Pakistani military operation against the TTP’s South Waziristan bases, this new Mehsud was

believed to directly command 5,000-10,000 militants, with the total TTP force comprised of up to

35,000 armed militants. 190

Militancy in western Pakistan is not coherent, and Taliban forces there are riven by deep-seated

tribal rivalries that may prevent the TTP from ever becoming a truly unified force. Some analysts

believe that, by pursuing sometimes contradictory military strategies in the region, the United

States and Pakistan have missed a chance to exploit such divisions. According to this argument,

U.S.-launched missile strikes have a unifying effect on the militants and so undermine the

Pakistani strategy of driving a wedge between various Islamist factions.191 In 2009, U.S.

intelligence agencies reportedly launched a major effort to examine potential fault lines within the

Islamist militant groups of western Pakistan with an eye toward exploiting rifts with diplomatic

and economic initiatives, a strategy associated with General Petraeus that realized successes in

Iraq.192 Some scholars argue, however, that the Taliban is not nearly as fragmented as many

believe, but rather is a decentralized organization, and that distinctions between Pakistani and

Afghan networks are largely arbitrary.193

The Demise of Baitullah Mehsud

Founding TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud was apparently killed in a U.S.-launched missile strike on

August 5, 2009. Later that month, militants declared that Hakimullah Mehsud, a 28-year-old with

a reputation for brutality and risk-taking, would be the new TTP chief.194 Baitullah’s elimination

was seen as a major victory for both Pakistani and U.S. interests, and a psychological blow to the

Pakistani Taliban. Yet it did not lead to any reduction of militancy in Pakistan, given that leading

operational commanders remained active and attacks on government and civilian targets became

even more common.

190

“Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP),” Jane’s World Insurgency and Terrorism, April 29, 2010; Hassan Abbas, “A

Profile of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” CTC Sentinel, January 2008.

191

“Tribal Tribulations—The Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, January 13, 2009; Mona

Kanwal Sheikh, “Disaggregating the Pakistani Taliban,” DIIS Brief, September 2009, at http://www.diis.dk/graphics/

Publications/Briefs2009/Disaggregating_Pakistani_Taliban.pdf.

192

“US Probes Divisions Within Taliban,” Boston Globe, May 24, 2009.

193

See, for example, Antonio Giustozzi, “One or Many? The Issue of the Taliban’s Unity and Disunity,” Pakistan

Security Research Unit Brief No. 48, April 23, 2009.

194

“Doubts Cast on Taliban Leadership,” BBC News, August 23, 2009; “New Baitullah on the Bloc,” Jane’s Terrorism

and Security Monitor, September 3, 2009. Press reports indicated that a violent power struggle followed Baitullah’s

death, with an apparent exchange of gunfire between Hakimullah and rival commander Waliur Rehman. For some time

after, many observers mistakenly believed Hakimullah had been killed. In January 2010, Hakimullah was believed to

have been killed in a drone strike on a militant compound in South Waziristan. He later appeared in a video, thus

confirming his escape (“Pakistani Taliban Confirm Leader’s Death,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2010; “Video

Shows Taliban Boss Alive,” Associated Press, May 3, 2010).

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By successfully targeting the primarily anti-Pakistani government Baitullah, U.S. officials may

have sought greater Pakistani action against Pakistan-based, Afghan-oriented militants such as

Mullah Omar and Sirajuddin Haqqani. Baitullah’s death was seen by some as presenting an

opportune time to apply maximum pressure on TTP militants, but Pakistani military officials

continued to defer, saying they suffered from serious equipment shortages and needed “months”

to create the right conditions for a FATA offensive. Some U.S. officials became concerned that

vital momentum was lost in the interim. 195

Pakistani Military Operations in the Tribal Agencies

The Pakistan army has deployed up to 150,000 regular and paramilitary troops to western

Pakistan in response to the surge in militancy there. Their militant foes have employed heavy

weapons in more aggressive tactics, making frontal attacks on army outposts instead of the hitand-run skirmishes of the past. Pakistan has sent major regular army units to replace Frontier

Corps soldiers in some areas near the Afghan border and has deployed elite, U.S.-trained and

equipped commandos to the tribal areas.

Major battles with militants have concentrated on three fronts: the Swat valley (see above), and

the Bajaur and South Waziristan tribal agencies. Yet all seven tribal agencies and adjacent regions

have been affected by conflict. By early 2009, Taliban forces had spread their activities into the

relatively peaceful Orakzai agency, the only in the FATA that does not border Afghanistan.

Moreover, an unprecedented January 2009 attack on a Frontier Corps outpost in the Mohmand

agency by some 600 Taliban militants represented an unusual reversal in that the militants had

crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan, signaling increased coordination by Taliban units

spanning the border. 196

Sporadic, but sometimes major military operations in the FATA have been ongoing since 2008,

with Pakistani authorities sometimes reporting significant militant casualties, although these

claims cannot be corroborated. Civilians are often killed in the fighting, and millions have been

forced from their homes. Nevertheless, the Pakistani military reports that many FATA tribal

leaders are fully supportive of the army’s efforts there.197 Analysts warned that the FATA would

present a battlefield very different from that found in the Swat Valley. The oftentimes treacherous

mountain terrain replete with caves was seen to favor the Taliban’s guerilla tactics over a

conventional force such as the Pakistan military.

Some counterinsurgency experts cast doubt on the Pakistan army’s ability to hold ground seized

in offensive operations and predicted that militants would quickly re-infiltrate into “cleared” areas

of the FATA.198 Such warnings have since appeared prescient: By mid-2010, it was apparent that

195

“Strike on Mehsud Could Spur Stronger US-Pakistan Cooperation,” Christian Science Monitor, August 7, 2009;

“Pakistan Taliban Leader’s Purported Death Opens Window of Opportunity,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2009;

Ahmed Rashid, “Now Pakistan Must Strike While the Iron is Hot” (op-ed), Evening Standard (London), August 24,

2009; “Pakistan Needs ‘Months’ for Waziristan Push: General,” Reuters, August 18, 2009.

196

“Orakzai Becomes New Haven for Taliban,” Daily Times (Lahore), February 4, 2009; “46 Die in Taliban Attack on

Pakistani Troops,” New York Times, January 12, 2009.

197

See for example, the Inter-Services Public Relations’ February 7, 2009, press release at http://www.ispr.gov.pk/

front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&date=2009/2/7.

198

“Waziristan a Tough Nut for Pakistani Forces,” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2009; David Kilcullen, “For Answers to

the Afghan-Pakistan Conflict, Ask: What Would Curzon Do?” (op-ed), Spectator (London), July 18, 2009.

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Pakistani forces were facing further combat on nearly all fronts previously thought secured, as an

absence of effective civilian political authority had precluded a consolidation of military gains.

Pakistani military operations appear to have succeeded only in pushing militants from one agency

to another while their leadership remains intact.199 Some American observers contend that, if

Pakistan is genuinely unable to eradicate the militant safe havens there, the United States and its

allies should not be prevented from doing so.200

Bajaur

“Operation Sher Dil,” launched in Bajaur in September 2008, reportedly caused the deaths of

more than 1,500 militants and some 100 soldiers before Pakistani officials declared it successfully

completed five months later. Still, pessimistic analysts viewed the gains from such operations as

temporary and predicted that widespread militant presence in Bajaur and neighboring regions was

apt to continue in the future. On this account, the pessimists were proven right.

A new peace agreement was signed with Bajaur’s tribal elders, but it appears that the bulk of

militant forces repositioned themselves, and the army’s heavy bombardments may have alienated

large segments of the local population. Some 8,000 Pakistani troops were backed in Bajaur by

helicopter gunships and ground attack jets. The Frontier Corps’ top officer estimated that militant

forces in the agency numbered about 2,000, including foreigners. The fighting apparently

attracted militants from neighboring regions and these reinforced insurgents were able to put up

surprisingly strong resistance, complete with sophisticated

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