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US Hopes to Recruit Pakistani Tribes Against al-Qaeda | |
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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - November 22, 2007
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US Hopes to Recruit Pakistani Tribes Against al-Qaeda
By Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti and Carlotta Gall
The New York Times
Washington - A new and classified American military
proposal outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal
leaders in the frontier areas of Pakistan in the fight
against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a broader
effort to bolster Pakistani forces against an expanding
militancy, American military officials said.
If adopted, the proposal would join elements of a shift in
strategy that would also be likely to expand the presence
of American military trainers in Pakistan, directly finance
a separate tribal paramilitary force that until now has
proved largely ineffective and pay militias that agreed to
fight Al Qaeda and foreign extremists, officials said. The
United States now has only about 50 troops in Pakistan, a
Pentagon spokesman said, a force that could grow by dozens
under the new approach.
The proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by
American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq that has been
hailed as a great success in fighting foreign insurgents
there. But it raises the question of whether such partner-
ships, to be forged in this case by Pakistani troops backed
by the United States, can be made without a significant
American military presence in Pakistan. And it is unclear
whether enough support can be found among the tribes, some
of which are working with Pakistan's intelligence agency.
Altogether, the broader strategic move toward more local
support is being accelerated because of concern about
instability in Pakistan and the weakness of the Pakistani
government, as well as fears that extremists with havens
in the tribal areas could escalate their attacks on allied
troops in Afghanistan. Just in recent weeks, Islamic
militants sympathetic to Al Qaeda and the Taliban have
already extended their reach beyond the frontier areas into
more settled areas, most notably the mountainous region of
Swat.
[The Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, recommend-
ed late Sunday that the Election Commission call for
parliamentary elections on Jan. 8, but he did not say
whether emergency rule would be revoked beforehand, Reuters
reported early Monday.
"Inshallah, the general elections in the country would be
held on Jan. 8," the official Associated Press of Pakistan
news agency quoted Musharraf as saying late Sunday.]
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The tribal proposal, a strategy paper prepared by staff
members of the United States Special Operations Command,
has been circulated to counterterrorism experts but has
not yet been formally approved by the command's head-
quarters in Tampa, Fla. Some other elements of the
campaign have been approved in principle by the Americans
and Pakistanis and await financing, like $350 million over
several years to help train and equip the Frontier Corps,
a paramilitary force that has about 85,000 members and is
recruited from border tribes.
Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has used
billions of dollars of aid and heavy political pressure to
encourage Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, to
carry out more aggressive military operations against
militants in the tribal areas. But the sporadic military
campaigns Pakistan has conducted there have had little
success, resulting instead in heavy losses among Pakistani
Army units and anger among local residents who have for
decades been mostly independent from Islamabad's control.
American officials acknowledge those failures, but say that
the renewed emphasis on recruiting allies among the tribal
militias and investing more heavily in the Frontier Corps
reflect the depth of American concern about the need to
address Islamic extremism in Pakistan. The new counter-
insurgency campaign is also a vivid example of the American
military's asserting a bigger role in a part of Pakistan
that the Central Intelligence Agency has overseen almost
exclusively since Sept. 11.
Small numbers of United States military personnel have
served as advisers to the Pakistani Army in the tribal
areas, giving planning advice and helping to integrate
American intelligence, said one senior American officer
with long service in the region.
Historically, American Special Forces have gone into
foreign countries to work with local militaries to improve
the security of those countries in ways that help American
interests. Under this new approach, the number of advisers
would increase, officials said.
American officials said these security improvements
complemented a package of assistance from the Agency for
International Development and the State Department for
the seven districts of the tribal areas that amounted to
$750 million over five years, and would involve work in
education, health and other sectors. The State Department's
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs is also assisting the Frontier Corps with financing
for counternarcotics work.
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Some details of the security improvements have been
reported by The Los Angeles Times and The Washington
Post. But the classified proposal to enlist tribal leaders
is new.
"The D.O.D. is about to start funding the Frontier Corps,"
one military official said, referring to the Department of
Defense. "We have only got a portion of that requested but
it is enough to start."
Until now, the Frontier Corps has not received American
military financing because the corps technically falls
under the Pakistani Interior Ministry, a nonmilitary
agency that the Pentagon ordinarily does not deal with.
But American officials say the Frontier Corps is in the
long term the most suitable force to combat an insurgency.
The force, which since 2001 has increasingly been under
the day-to-day command of Pakistani Army units, is now
being expanded and trained by American advisers, diplomats
said.
The training of the Frontier Corps remains a concern for
some. NATO and American soldiers in Afghanistan have often
blamed the Frontier Corps for aiding and abetting Taliban
insurgents mounting cross-border attacks. "It's going to
take years to turn them into a professional force," said
one Western military official. "Is it worth it now?"
At the same time, military officials fear the assistance to
develop a counterinsurgency force is too little, too late.
"The advantage is already in the enemy hands," one Western
military official said. Local Taliban and foreign fighters
in Waziristan have managed to regroup since negotiating
peace deals with the government in 2005 and 2006, and last
year they were able to fight all through the winter, he
said. Militants have now emerged in force in the Swat area,
a scenic tourist region that is a considerable distance
inland from the tribal areas on the border.
The planning at the Special Operations Command intensified
after Adm. Eric T. Olson, a member of the Navy Seals who
is the new head of the command, met with General Musharraf
and Pakistani military leaders in August to discuss how
the military could increase cooperation in Pakistan's fight
against the extremists.
A spokesman for the command, Kenneth McGraw, would not
comment on any briefing paper that had been circulated for
review. He said Friday that after Admiral Olson returned
from his trip, he "energized the staff to look for ways to
develop opportunities for future cooperation."
A senior Defense Department official said that Admiral
Olson had prepared a memorandum on how Special Operations
forces could assist the Pakistani military in the counter-
insurgency, and shared that document with several senior
Pentagon officials.
Four senior defense or counterterrorism officials confirmed
that planning was under way at the command headquarters.
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One person who was briefed on the proposal prepared by the
Special Operations Command staff members, and who spoke on
condition of anonymity because the briefing had not yet
been approved, said it was in the form of about two dozen
slides. The slides described a strategy using both military
and nonmilitary measures to fight the militants.
One slide included a chart that categorized one to two
dozen tribes by location - North Waziristan and South
Waziristan, for example - and then gave a brief description
of their location, their known or suspected links to Al
Qaeda and the Taliban, and their size and military
abilities.
The briefing said United States forces would not be
involved in any conventional combat in Pakistan. But
several senior military and Pentagon officials said
elements of the Joint Special Operations Command, an
elite counterterrorism unit, might be involved in strikes
against senior militant leaders under specific conditions.
Two people briefed on elements of the approach said it
was modeled in part on efforts in Iraq, where American
commanders have worked with Sunni sheiks in Anbar Province
to turn locals against the militant group Al Qaeda in
Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni extremist group that
American intelligence agencies say is led by foreigners.
The success of these efforts, together with the consensus
in military and intelligence circles that the grip of the
original Al Qaeda in the tribal areas continues to tighten
at a time when the Pakistani government is in crisis, led
planners at the Special Operations Command to develop the
strategy for the tribal areas.
A group of Pakistan experts convened in March by the
Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that empowering
tribal leaders could be an effective strategy to counter
the rising influence of Islamic religious leaders and to
weaken Al Qaeda. But a report on the session found that
such successes "would be difficult to achieve, particular-
ly in the north (Bajaur) and south (North and South
Waziristan)."
One person who had been brief on the proposal cautioned
that whether a significant number of tribal leaders would
join an American-backed effort carried out by Pakistani
forces was "the $64,000 question."
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Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington,
and Carlotta Gall from Islamabad, Pakistan.
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