Xeric
RETIRED THINK TANK
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- Mar 31, 2008
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This would clear a few doubts:
Troop Deaths Draw Focus to U.S. Presence in Pakistan - NYTimes.com
Troop Deaths Draw Focus to U.S. Presence in Pakistan
Ali Shah/Reuters
Security officials walked past the crater of a bombing in front of a destroyed school in Timergara, the main town in the Lower Dir district in Pakistan’s restive North West Frontier Province, on Wednesday.
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: February 3, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack Wednesday lifted the veil on United States military assistance to Pakistan that the authorities here would like to keep quiet and the Americans, as the donors, chafe at not receiving credit for.
The soldiers were among 60 to 100 members of a Special Forces Operation team that trains Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency techniques, including intelligence gathering and development assistance. The American soldiers serve under the overall command of Admiral Eric T. Olson, the head of the Special Operations Command.
The Special Forces training, under way for the last 18 months, has been acknowledged gingerly by both the Americans and the Pakistanis but has been deliberately kept low key so as not to trespass onto Pakistani sensitivities about sovereignty, and not to further inflame high anti-American sentiment.
Even though Pakistan is termed an ally by the United States, Pakistan has not allowed American combat forces to operate here, unlike in Afghanistan or Iraq, a point that is stressed by the Pentagon and the Pakistani army, the most powerful institution in Pakistan.
Instead the Central Intelligence Agency operates what has become the main American weapon in Pakistan, the pilotless drones armed with missiles that have struck with increasing intensity against Taliban and Qaeda militants in the lawless tribal areas.
The American soldiers were probably targeted as a result of the drone strikes, said Syed Rifaat Hussain, Professor of International Relations at Islamabad University. “The attack seems a payback for the mounting frequency of the drone attacks,” Mr. Hussain said.
If the American soldiers were specifically targeted, it raised the question of whether the Taliban had received intelligence or cooperation from within the Frontier Corps.
The three soldiers were killed Wednesday, and two others wounded, in the region of Lower Dir, which is close to but outside the tribal areas. According to police officials in the region, the armored vehicle in which they were traveling was hit by a suicide bomber driving a car. Earlier reports from Pakistani security officials said the soldiers were killed by a roadside explosive device.
To disguise themselves in a way that is common for Western men in Pakistan, the American soldiers were dressed in traditional Pakistani garb of baggy trousers and long tunics, known as shalwar kameez, according to a Frontier Corps officer.
They were wore local caps that helped cover their hair, he said.
Their armored vehicle was equipped with electronic jammers sufficient to detect remote-controlled devices and mines, the officer said. Vehicles driven by the Frontier Corps were placed in front and back of the Americans as protection, he said.
Still, the Taliban bomber was able to penetrate their cordon. In all 131 people were wounded, most of them young girl students at a high school adjacent to where the suicide bomber struck, the Lower Dir police said.
The soldiers were en route to the opening of a girls school that had been rebuilt with American funds, the American Embassy said in a statement. The school had been destroyed by the Taliban last year as they swept through Lower Dir, and the nearby Swat Valley, where a months-long battle raged between the Pakistani army and the Taliban.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban called reporters hours after the attack against the Americans and claimed his group was responsible.
The Pakistani army currently occupies Swat, and in an effort to strengthen the civilian institutions there and in Dir, some of the American soldiers on the Special Forces Operation team have been quietly working on development projects, an American official said.
The presence of the American soldiers in an area known to be threaded with Taliban militants would also raise questions, said Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of the North West Frontier Province, where Swat and Dir are located.
It was odd, Mr. Aziz said, that American soldiers should go to such a volatile area where Taliban militants were known to be prevalent even though the Pakistani security forces insisted that they had been flushed out.
The usual practice for development work in Dir and Swat called for Pakistani aid workers or paramilitary soldiers to visit the sites, he said.
That the Americans were involved in training Frontier Corps recruits in development assistance was little known until Wednesday’s attack.
“People are going to be very suspicious,” said Mr. Aziz, who is now involved in the American assistance projects elsewhere. “There is going to be big blowback in the media.”
An American development official said that encouraging the Frontier Corps to become expert in humanitarian aid was an important part of the trainers’ counter insurgency curriculum.
Last summer, for example, the American military trainers helped distribute food and water in camps for the more than one million people displaced from the Swat Valley by the fighting, the official said. But that American assistance, too, was kept quiet.
The 500,000 strong army headed by Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the standard bearer of Pakistan’s strong sense of nationalism, is resistant to the appearance of overt military assistance, least of all from the unpopular Americans, that would make the army look less than self-reliant on the battlefield.
Over the last several years, as the Qaeda-backed insurgency increased its hold on Pakistan’s tribal areas, and used their base to attack American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the American military asked for permission for Special Forces combat soldiers to operate in the tribal zone, according to American officials. Pakistan rebuffed the requests, they said.
Whether American soldiers are based in Pakistan is often raised by Pakistani politicians, students and ordinary people, many of whom are suspicious of American motives.
The question of the presence of American soldiers in Pakistan is also prompted by the fact that the American military provides important equipment to the Pakistani army, including F 16 fighter jets, Cobra attack helicopters and howitzers.
In July last year, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, denied any American soldiers were in Pakistan. Asked at a meeting with Pakistani aid workers and school officials in Islamabad about, Mr. Holbrooke said: “People think that the U.S. has troops in Pakistan, well, we don’t.”
Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan, and Pir Zubair Shah from Islamabad.
Troop Deaths Draw Focus to U.S. Presence in Pakistan - NYTimes.com
Troop Deaths Draw Focus to U.S. Presence in Pakistan
Ali Shah/Reuters
Security officials walked past the crater of a bombing in front of a destroyed school in Timergara, the main town in the Lower Dir district in Pakistan’s restive North West Frontier Province, on Wednesday.
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: February 3, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack Wednesday lifted the veil on United States military assistance to Pakistan that the authorities here would like to keep quiet and the Americans, as the donors, chafe at not receiving credit for.
The soldiers were among 60 to 100 members of a Special Forces Operation team that trains Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency techniques, including intelligence gathering and development assistance. The American soldiers serve under the overall command of Admiral Eric T. Olson, the head of the Special Operations Command.
The Special Forces training, under way for the last 18 months, has been acknowledged gingerly by both the Americans and the Pakistanis but has been deliberately kept low key so as not to trespass onto Pakistani sensitivities about sovereignty, and not to further inflame high anti-American sentiment.
Even though Pakistan is termed an ally by the United States, Pakistan has not allowed American combat forces to operate here, unlike in Afghanistan or Iraq, a point that is stressed by the Pentagon and the Pakistani army, the most powerful institution in Pakistan.
Instead the Central Intelligence Agency operates what has become the main American weapon in Pakistan, the pilotless drones armed with missiles that have struck with increasing intensity against Taliban and Qaeda militants in the lawless tribal areas.
The American soldiers were probably targeted as a result of the drone strikes, said Syed Rifaat Hussain, Professor of International Relations at Islamabad University. “The attack seems a payback for the mounting frequency of the drone attacks,” Mr. Hussain said.
If the American soldiers were specifically targeted, it raised the question of whether the Taliban had received intelligence or cooperation from within the Frontier Corps.
The three soldiers were killed Wednesday, and two others wounded, in the region of Lower Dir, which is close to but outside the tribal areas. According to police officials in the region, the armored vehicle in which they were traveling was hit by a suicide bomber driving a car. Earlier reports from Pakistani security officials said the soldiers were killed by a roadside explosive device.
To disguise themselves in a way that is common for Western men in Pakistan, the American soldiers were dressed in traditional Pakistani garb of baggy trousers and long tunics, known as shalwar kameez, according to a Frontier Corps officer.
They were wore local caps that helped cover their hair, he said.
Their armored vehicle was equipped with electronic jammers sufficient to detect remote-controlled devices and mines, the officer said. Vehicles driven by the Frontier Corps were placed in front and back of the Americans as protection, he said.
Still, the Taliban bomber was able to penetrate their cordon. In all 131 people were wounded, most of them young girl students at a high school adjacent to where the suicide bomber struck, the Lower Dir police said.
The soldiers were en route to the opening of a girls school that had been rebuilt with American funds, the American Embassy said in a statement. The school had been destroyed by the Taliban last year as they swept through Lower Dir, and the nearby Swat Valley, where a months-long battle raged between the Pakistani army and the Taliban.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban called reporters hours after the attack against the Americans and claimed his group was responsible.
The Pakistani army currently occupies Swat, and in an effort to strengthen the civilian institutions there and in Dir, some of the American soldiers on the Special Forces Operation team have been quietly working on development projects, an American official said.
The presence of the American soldiers in an area known to be threaded with Taliban militants would also raise questions, said Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of the North West Frontier Province, where Swat and Dir are located.
It was odd, Mr. Aziz said, that American soldiers should go to such a volatile area where Taliban militants were known to be prevalent even though the Pakistani security forces insisted that they had been flushed out.
The usual practice for development work in Dir and Swat called for Pakistani aid workers or paramilitary soldiers to visit the sites, he said.
That the Americans were involved in training Frontier Corps recruits in development assistance was little known until Wednesday’s attack.
“People are going to be very suspicious,” said Mr. Aziz, who is now involved in the American assistance projects elsewhere. “There is going to be big blowback in the media.”
An American development official said that encouraging the Frontier Corps to become expert in humanitarian aid was an important part of the trainers’ counter insurgency curriculum.
Last summer, for example, the American military trainers helped distribute food and water in camps for the more than one million people displaced from the Swat Valley by the fighting, the official said. But that American assistance, too, was kept quiet.
The 500,000 strong army headed by Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the standard bearer of Pakistan’s strong sense of nationalism, is resistant to the appearance of overt military assistance, least of all from the unpopular Americans, that would make the army look less than self-reliant on the battlefield.
Over the last several years, as the Qaeda-backed insurgency increased its hold on Pakistan’s tribal areas, and used their base to attack American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the American military asked for permission for Special Forces combat soldiers to operate in the tribal zone, according to American officials. Pakistan rebuffed the requests, they said.
Whether American soldiers are based in Pakistan is often raised by Pakistani politicians, students and ordinary people, many of whom are suspicious of American motives.
The question of the presence of American soldiers in Pakistan is also prompted by the fact that the American military provides important equipment to the Pakistani army, including F 16 fighter jets, Cobra attack helicopters and howitzers.
In July last year, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, denied any American soldiers were in Pakistan. Asked at a meeting with Pakistani aid workers and school officials in Islamabad about, Mr. Holbrooke said: “People think that the U.S. has troops in Pakistan, well, we don’t.”
Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan, and Pir Zubair Shah from Islamabad.
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May the people who died rest in peace, including american soldiers ofcourse.
