Obama’s Pakistan Successes

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Obama’s Pakistan Successes

How the U.S. is gaining cooperation in Islamabad, making the country more stable while hitting the Taliban hard.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was right when he countered his old rival Dick Cheney's criticisms of President Obama's counterterrorism policies last weekend. Cheney saying that the nation was less safe under the new administration is "not borne out by the facts," Powell said. Many of those facts can be found on the ground in Pakistan, where the Obama administration has enjoyed an unprecedented degree of cooperation from the once-hesitant government in Islamabad, and has led a coordinated effort to bring the Pakistan military and civilian sides together.
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Since last summer a slew of top Taliban commanders wanted by both governments, including Baitullah Mehsud and Abdul Ghani Baradar, have been killed or arrested. The remaining Pakistani Taliban, who only a year ago enjoyed close to untouchable status, are now hunted men, including elements of the dangerous Haqqani Network in Waziristan. And the "hammer and anvil" approach in Afghanistan—with NATO's Marja offensive serving as the hammer and Pakistani forces across the border acting as the anvil—may at last be working after years of losing ground to encroaching Taliban, who had years to regroup from their safe haven in the mountainous tribal regions of Pakistan.

A bloody stalemate that some critics a year ago—including NEWSWEEK—worried might turn into "Obama's Vietnam," has a chance of becoming known instead as the Obama Surge, with an aura of success reminiscent of George W. Bush's 11th hour reassertion of control in Iraq in 2007–08. And this surge is targeted much more directly at our real enemy, Al Qaeda.

The question is whether this intelligence windfall will bring us any closer to the real prizes: Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri, and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, all of whom are still believed to be hiding in Pakistan? American and Pakistani officials won't promise that just yet, but a senior U.S. administration official tells me, "We're making them very uncomfortable." And they expect more successes to come. According to senior American and Pakistani officials, about 12 Al Qaeda were arrested recently trying to cross into Pakistan in Helmand—and were turned over to NATO. Pakistani forces also claim to have killed another 11 "Al Qaeda liaison personnel."

Key to the turnaround have been several changed elements, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. First, intensive, hands-on U.S. diplomacy with Pakistan—with regular senior-level trips by national-security adviser Jim Jones, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others—has helped to reassure Islamabad that it is seen as a long-term partner, not a mere instrument. The diplomatic offensive has also begun to dissuade many in the Pakistani military and intelligence services that they need to cultivate extremist groups—including the Taliban—in order to secure a voice in neighboring Afghanistan. Both Pakistan and India have long seen the country as a proxy battleground where both countries seek to gain advantage, and the Pakistanis have generally sponsored Muslim extremists as a means to undermine India. But the Obama administration has helped to persuade Islamabad—especially the military—that it will have a bigger voice in the political future of Afghanistan without resorting to extremist allies. U.S. diplomacy with India led by Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and U.S. Ambassador Tim Roemer also has taken the edge off the rivalry. "The driving force from the outset is that Pakistan needed to be part of the regional strategy. They need to be comfortable they're going to have an Afghanistan on the border that will be stable and not a threat to them," said the senior administration official. "The internal criticism there was that Pakistan was viewed by the Americans as a mere launching pad. Also, we provided assurances that the [planned] 2011 withdrawal [from Afghanistan] doesn't mean we're leaving."

At the same time, the Pakistani security chiefs have come to understand that the Taliban threaten their own state, perhaps more than India does right now (in a further sign of cooling passions, the foreign secretaries of the two countries are meeting this week). Just as important, the crackdown by Pakistan's military has been popular. This was partly the result of foolish overreaching by the extremists. As Taliban forces moved into Swat Valley they sought to impose harsh Islamic law and sowed indiscriminate violence that left a bitter taste, prompting support when Pakistani Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Kayani directed a successful offensive there.

Islamabad, with U.S. encouragement, also has launched a propaganda campaign to highlight the brutality of the Taliban. When Gen. Jones visited the Pakistani frontier corps on his most recent trip, they were being shown videos of the Taliban beheading Pakistanis. "It's had this chilling effect," the senior administration official told me Tuesday upon Jones's return. "There is great support among the population for what the Pakistani army has been doing. Kayani certainly sees that. More than ever before, they [the Pakistani Army] have a sense of purpose and backing of the people." According to one internal government survey cited to NEWSWEEK, about three quarters of Pakistanis now consider the Taliban to be a threat, whereas the percentage was down in the low 30s during the years of autocrat Pervez Musharraf.

Finally, the Pakistani government itself is at long last united, and the ugly anti-Americanism that accompanied the foreign-aid debate last year may have abated somewhat. (Though the administration official cautions: "There is still great sensitivity to close cooperation with the U.S. It is still not politically popular.") Until late last year there was intense mistrust between the military and the civilian government led by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. But on his most recent trip, Gen. Jones met with all three in the same room, a sign that U.S. efforts to bring the parties together have had some effect.

All in all, it is a striking contrast to the Bush years. Despite taking a tough you're-with-us-or-against-us approach with Pakistan, the Bush team found the Pakistanis were chronically stingy with intelligence. Critics such as Gary Schroen, the former CIA station chief, saw a pattern of giving up second-rate Taliban or Al Qaeda leaders only to ameliorate American mistrust, then retreating. To maintain his power, with the approval of Bush and Cheney, Pakistan's then-president Musharraf cut deals with the religious parties that gave extremists succor, in particular the coalition called the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA, or United Action Committee). Musharraf also barred the parties of his main democratic rivals, including the Pakistan Peoples Party led by the since-assassinated Benazir Bhutto (Zardari is her widower). The result was that Islamism grew in power and influence under Musharraf's constantly deferred promises to reinstate genuine democracy, even as Washington delivered billions of dollars in aid. Pakistani officials also complain that the Bush team did little more than make demands. "The Pakistanis were feeling used," said the Obama administration official.

To be fair to Bush, he and then–secretary of state Condoleezza Rice sought to ease Musharraf out of power toward the end. And there are still many things that could still go wrong now: Zardari remains unpopular and faces an ever-threatening political insurgency from former prime minister Nawaz Sharif (with whom the Americans have also been in contact). And, of course, another errant drone strike could also throw the country back into a frenzy of anti-Americanism. Senior U.S. officials say it will be a year before it is known whether the Marja offensive—and the so-called hammer and anvil—have succeeded.

But both U.S. and Pakistani officials express cautious optimism that a corner has been turned in the central front against Islamic terrorists.

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Gen. Petraeus Now Praises Pakistan's Taliban Fight

Praise Comes After Pakistan Makes a Series of High Level Taliban Arrests

By NICK SCHIFRIN
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Feb. 23, 2010

The U.S. military commander who oversees the Afghanistan war said today that Pakistan's arrest of several Taliban leaders reflected an "evolution" in how the country's powerful military perceived militants who it once supported.
Gen. Petraeus Now Praises Pakistan's Taliban Fight

Gen. David Petaeus praised Pakistan's efforts against the Taliban which has resulted in a sweep of top Taliban leaders and military offensives along Afghan border.

Gen. David Petraeus, speaking to a small group of journalists during a visit to Islamabad, said Pakistan now agreed with the United States that a "syndicate" of militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan posed a challenge to the entire region and had to be confronted.

In recent weeks Pakistan has made the most dramatic arrests of the nine-year war in Afghanistan, picking up at least half a dozen Afghan Taliban leaders, including the group's military commander and two "shadow governors" from northern Afghanistan, according to Pakistani officials.

n the past U.S. officials have accused Pakistan of harboring or at least ignoring three major Afghan Taliban groups that use Pakistan as a safe haven to attack American troops in Afghanistan.

Petraeus' comments today reflect a merging of American and Pakistani interests when it comes to Afghanistan: a willingness by Pakistan to confront the Afghan Taliban, and a willingness of the United States to listen and agree to Pakistan's strategic interests in the region, according to both American and Pakistani officials.

The general praised Pakistan for what he described as an aggressive stance toward the Taliban, an apparent reference to military offensives against the Taliban in the Swat Valley and in South Waziristan.

In the past, however, U.S. officials have expressed impatience that Pakistanis didn't extend their offensive to a major Taliban haven in North Waziristan.

"Pakistan has put a lot of short sticks into a lot of hornets nets," he said, arguing that Pakistan's military campaign had confronted multiple militant groups across the region. "You have to be able to pull out some of the sticks before putting them in other places."

Petraeus heaped praise on Pakistan's military for confronting the Pakistani Taliban along the Afghanistan border, calling the military operation "very impressive" and a "classic counterinsurgency campaign."

Gen. Petraeus Expresses Confidence in Pakistan's Taliban Strategy

He said that last spring Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani laid out an "impressive" and "well thought out" 18-month vision of military campaigns across Pakistan, and that he had stuck to it. Petraeus even declined to ask the Pakistani military to expand its campaign into North Waziristan, reflecting his extreme trust in Kiyani.

"If Gen. Kiyani said there was no need for steamroller operation in North Waziristan, then I agree with him," Petraeus said.

Petraeus declined to speak about the specific intelligence that led to the arrests of the Afghan Taliban leaders, but he disagreed with a reporter who suggested the Pakistani intelligence agencies could have made those arrests in the past.

"These arrests are made as intelligence presents itself," he said.

Petraeus also disagreed with suggestions that Mullah Baradar, the deputy leader of the Afghan Taliban, was arrested because he was negotiating directly with the Afghan government and in so doing shutting Pakistan out from the reconciliation process.

"I am not aware that any of these individuals were involved in any reconciliation talks," he said of the leaders who had been arrested.

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Taliban Capture Raises Hopes of Pakistan Shift

By ZAHID HUSSAIN And SIOBHAN GORMAN

The capture of a second high-level leader of the Afghan Taliban by Pakistani authorities has raised the prospect that Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, long accused by the U.S. of ties with Islamist extremists, has begun to turn on an organization it once cultivated.

But U.S. officials who work closely with Pakistan said they remain unsure if the recent Inter-Service Intelligence operations against the Taliban are a sign of real change in ISI strategy or short-term posturing.

"That's the question the whole intelligence community is asking right now," said a senior U.S. military official who works on Pakistan issues. "Is this a success or is this calculated?"

Another U.S. official was cautiously optimistic. "No one's ignoring their past with the Taliban, but no one's ignoring Pakistani cooperation either," the official said. "It's one step at a time, and right now, the steps are moving in the right direction."

For years, Pakistani leaders dismissed U.S. intelligence claims that the Afghan Taliban movement's senior council was based in the city of Quetta in western Pakistan, a position the latest captures undermine. Even now, there are conflicting reports over the amount of cooperation between Pakistani and U.S. intelligence operatives and the degree of access U.S. agents are being given to those apprehended.

U.S. and Pakistani officials confirmed Tuesday that Mullah Abdul Kabir, an alleged member of the Taliban's leadership council and commander of Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan, had been captured last week in Pakistan. A U.S. intelligence official in the region said Mr. Kabir was being held by Pakistani authorities, but U.S. officials had not yet been given access to him.

The U.S. intelligence official said Mr. Kabir's capture was a Pakistan-only operation in the northwestern town of Nowshera. That contrasts with the recent high-profile capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the alleged day-to-day Taliban operations chief, in what U.S. and Pakistani officials say was a cooperative effort between ISI operatives and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The turnabout is one of the most dramatic offshoots of the military surge in neighboring Afghanistan.

It follows mounting distrust between the U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services, which began about five years ago, in which the Americans believed the Pakistanis weren't sharing all their intelligence on Taliban in the country, and Pakistanis were suspicious of U.S. motives.

A more recent push from both sides to bridge the gap—including pressure from U.S. officials who provided evidence that elements of Pakistan's spy services were offering funding and intelligence to the Taliban—is yielding closer intelligence cooperation, officials said.

"America has an advantage in technical intelligence: eyes in the sky," one Pakistani official said. "We have people on ground. If you can match those in a timely manner, you get better results."

American officials say the Pakistanis have come to believe that the Afghan Taliban poses a threat to domestic stability. Pakistani cooperation has "picked up as the Pakistanis have come to understand even more clearly the serious threat they themselves face from terrorists," a U.S. official said. "With the American commitment in Afghanistan growing, with American and Coalition soldiers dying in battle, the Pakistanis know they must also take action against the Afghan Taliban."

In addition to the capture of Mr. Kabir and Mr. Baradar, whose seizure in Karachi was disclosed last week by Pakistani and U.S. officials, Pakistani intelligence agents have also detained Mullah Abdul Salam, an alleged Taliban shadow governor for Afghanistan's Kunduz province, and Mullah Mohammad of Baghlan province.

Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, a former head of the ISI who is now Paksitan's powerful Army chief, has persuaded some senior U.S. officials that he intends to rid the ISI of its Islamist ties.

The ISI has a track record of creating and fomenting Islamist movements to fight proxy wars, particularly in Kashmir, the province India and Pakistan have fought over for decades.

Gen. Kiyani put a close ally, Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, in charge of the ISI when he took over the Army in 2008, and according to another senior U.S. military official, the two men have made key changes in the ISI's senior leadership in recent years.

The Taliban's leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura for the city it is based in, originally comprised 20 members, but according to a senior Pakistani army official many of them have either been killed or captured. Some of the surviving members are believed to have scattered to other Pakistani cities after the latest arrests.

Pakistan has been silent on whether the detained insurgent leaders would be handed over to the U.S. or Afghan governments. The senior U.S. military official said U.S. officials are watching the handling of the detainees carefully for signs of Pakistan's intentions.

Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, said the government has not received any requests for Mr. Baradar's extradition. "We will see when we receive any formal request," he told reporters in Islamabad on Monday.

Security and defense analysts said the arrests of senior Taliban commanders could affect the movement's ability to fight in the short term, but would not have much impact on the war in Afghanistan because a new generation of militants who already have years of war experience could take over command.

Taliban sources in Pakistan said Mr. Kabir had been missing for the past several weeks. Some Pakistani newspaper reports, quoting local intelligence sources, said Mr. Kabir was picked up in an operation conducted solely by Pakistani security agencies and he is now being held by the ISI.

Pakistani military and intelligence officials declined to confirm his arrest.
—Peter Spiegel and Matthew Rosenberg contributed to this article.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com

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Gen Petraeus hails ‘breakthroughs’ in Pakistan

* US general rules out immediate action against Haqqani network
* Alleges Afghan Taliban hold meetings in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: US Central Command Commander General David Petraeus on Tuesday hailed “important breakthroughs” and detentions in Pakistan, following the capture of Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and reports of other arrests.

“It is obvious that there have been a number of important detentions in Pakistan. It is very clear that there have been some significant intelligence operations,” Petraeus told reporters in Islamabad.

“This campaign is really quite impressive and I think some of the names of the leaders involved in this will be seen as quite expert practitioners in counter-insurgency strategies,” he said.

Petraeus said that any new, large-scale Pakistani offensive against groups such as the Haqqani network in the immediate future was unlikely, and that critics needed to appreciate the gains already made.

“You can only take on so many hornets’ nests at one time,” the general said.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Pakistani authorities have captured Mullah Abdul Kabir, a senior Taliban figure and top military commander fighting in the eight-year-war against US forces in Afghanistan.

But Pakistani officials told AFP they could not confirm the report, which said Mullah Kabir was detained in NWFP.

Asked about why Pakistan had moved against Afghan Taliban, the head of US Central Command said there was no single explanation.

“There have been some important breakthroughs. I don’t want to overstate this though either, because again there are a number of bad guys out there, but these have been significant,” Petraeus said.

“Some of the insurgent leaders from Afghanistan in particular tend to spend some of the winters in Pakistan and there are periodically meetings here. As always, there’s no single factor or explanation for what has taken place. Rather it’s a multi-varied equation,” he said.

His visit coincided with a suicide bombing on a military convoy in the Swat valley that killed nine people, including women and children. A Briton was also among the dead. afp/reuters

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C.I.A. and Pakistan Work Together, but Do So Warily

By MARK MAZZETTI and JANE PERLEZ
Published: February 24, 2010

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Inside a secret detention center in an industrial pocket of the Pakistani capital called I/9, teams of Pakistani and American spies have kept a watchful eye on a senior Taliban leader captured last month. With the other eye, they watch each other.

The C.I.A. and its Pakistani counterpart, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, have a long and often tormented relationship. And even now, they are moving warily toward conflicting goals, with each maneuvering to protect its influence after the shooting stops in Afghanistan.

Yet interviews in recent days show how they are working together on tactical operations, and how far the C.I.A. has extended its extraordinary secret war beyond the mountainous tribal belt and deep into Pakistan’s sprawling cities.

Beyond the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, C.I.A. operatives working with the ISI have carried out dozens of raids throughout Pakistan over the past year, carried out from bases in the cities of Quetta, Peshawar and elsewhere, according to Pakistani security officials.

The raids often come after electronic intercepts by American spy satellites, or tips from Pakistani informants — and the spies from the two countries then sometimes drive in the same car to pick up their quarry. Sometimes the teams go on lengthy reconnaissance missions, with the ISI operatives packing sunscreen and neon glow sticks that allow them to identify their positions at night.

Successful missions sometimes end with American and Pakistani spies toasting one another with Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky, a gift from the C.I.A.

The C.I.A.’s drone campaign in Pakistan is well known, which is striking given that this is a covert war. But these on-the-ground activities have been shrouded in secrecy because the Pakistani government has feared the public backlash against the close relationship with the Americans.

In strengthening ties to the ISI, the C.I.A. is aligning itself with a shadowy institution that meddles in domestic politics and has a history of ties to violent militant groups in the region. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment for this article.

Officials in Washington and Islamabad agree that the relationship between the two spy services has steadily improved since the low point of the summer of 2008, when the C.I.A.’s deputy director traveled to Pakistan to confront ISI officials with communications intercepts indicating that the ISI was complicit in the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The spy agencies have built trust in part through age-old tactics of espionage: killing or capturing each other’s enemies. A turning point came last August, when a C.I.A missile killed the militant leader Baitullah Mehsud as he lay on the roof of his compound in South Waziristan, his wife beside him massaging his back.

Mr. Mehsud for more than a year had been responsible for a wave of terror attacks in Pakistani cities, and many inside the ISI were puzzled as to why the United States had not sought to kill him. Some even suspected he was an American, or Indian, agent.

The drone attack on Mr. Mehsud is part of a joint war against militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where C.I.A. drones pound militants from the air as Pakistani troops fight them on the ground.

And yet for two spy agencies with a long history of mistrust, the accommodation extends only so far. For instance, when it comes to the endgame in Afghanistan, where Pakistan hopes to play a significant role as a power broker, interviews with Pakistani and American intelligence officials in Islamabad and Washington reveal that the interests of the two sides remain far apart.

Even as the ISI breaks up a number of Taliban cells, officials in Islamabad, Washington and Kabul hint that the ISI’s goal seems to be to weaken the Taliban just enough to bring them to the negotiating table, but leaving them strong enough to represent Pakistani interests in a future Afghan government.

This contrasts sharply with the American goal of battering the Taliban and strengthening Kabul’s central government and security forces, even if American officials also recognize that political reconciliation with elements of the Taliban is likely to be part of any ultimate settlement.

Tensions in the relationship surfaced in the days immediately after Mullah Baradar’s arrest, when the ISI refused to allow C.I.A. officers to interrogate the Taliban leader. Americans have since been given access to the detention center. On Wednesday, Pakistani and Afghan officials meeting in Islamabad said that a deal was being worked out to transfer Mullah Baradar to Afghan custody, which could allow the Americans unrestrained access to him.

Besides Mullah Baradar, several Taliban shadow governors and other senior leaders have been arrested inside Pakistan in recent weeks.

A top American military officer in Afghanistan on Wednesday suggested that with the arrests, the ISI could be trying to accelerate the timetable for a negotiated settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

In the three decades since C.I.A. and the ISI teamed up to funnel weapons to Afghan militias fighting the Soviets, the two spy services have soldiered though a co-dependent, yet suspicious relationship. C.I.A. officers in Islamabad rely on the Pakistani spy service for its network of informants. But they are wary of the ISI’s longstanding ties to militants like the Taliban, which Pakistani spies have seen as a necessary ally to blunt archrival India’s influence in Afghanistan.

The ISI gets millions of dollars in United States aid from its American counterpart (which allowed the Pakistan spy service to develop a counterterrorism division), yet is suspicious that the Americans and the Indians might be playing their own “double game” against Pakistan.

In Islamabad, officials are nervous about the intensification of the C.I.A.’s drone campaign in North Waziristan against the network run by Sirajuddin Haqqani, whom the ISI for years has used as a force to carry out missions in Afghanistan that serve Pakistani interests.

C.I.A. officials believe that Mr. Haqqani’s group played a role in the killing of seven Americans in Khost, Afghanistan, in late December, and since then have carried out more than a dozen drone strikes in the Haqqani network’s enclave in North Waziristan.

The ISI, an institution feared by most Pakistanis, is used to getting its way. It meddles in domestic politics and in recent months has been suspected by Western embassies in Islamabad of planting anti-American stories in Pakistani newspapers.

It has also been criticized in reports by international human rights organizations of using brutal interrogation tactics against its prisoners, though the same could certainly be said of the C.I.A. in the period of 2002 to 2004. The annual human rights report of the State Department in 2007 said “there were persistent reports that security forces, including intelligence services, tortured and abused persons.”

The head of the Pakistani military, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said in a recent briefing that it was doubtful that a centralized government would work in post-conflict Afghanistan, making it more important for Pakistan to continue to influence the Taliban in the years to come.

As a result there remains a belief among American intelligence officials that Pakistan will never completely abandon the Taliban, and officials both in Washington and Kabul admit that they are almost completely in the dark about Pakistan’s long-term strategy regarding the Taliban.

“We have a better level of cooperation,” said one top American official who met recently in Islamabad with General Kayani. “How far that goes, I can’t tell yet. We’ll know soon whether this is cooperation, or a stonewall and kind of rope a dope.”
“I don’t know if they’re pushing anyone to the table, but they are certainly preparing the meal,” the officer said.