Secret commitments by both the political and military leaderships to co-operate with the US in counter-terrorism, ritual denial of such commitments in public statements, dragging the feet in the implementation of the commitments and fresh commitments. That has been the history of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism co-operation with the US. That history continues after the death of Osama bin Laden.
If the Army had tacitly agreed to instances of wanton US violation of Pakistani sovereignty in respect of the Drone strikes, is it not legitimate to suspect as many, are doing, that there must have been some tacit understanding relating to the Abbottabad raid too?
The US-Pakistan counter-terrorism co-operation, which had stalled following the raid by US naval commandos into the residential hide-out of Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad in the Khyber Pakhtoonkwa province on May 2, has been re-started following a vigorous push given by Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who visited Islamabad for talks on May 15 and 16 and by Mrs.Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who followed up on Kerry’s talks during a short visit to Islamabad on May 27.
After Kerry’s visit, the two countries initiated measures to bring down the tensions, which had arisen after the Abbottabad raid. Pakistan handed over to the US the half-destroyed helicopter which the naval commandos had blown up —- but not completely— on May 2 when the pilot reportedly lost control and hit the compound wall of OBL’s residence while bringing it down. The US was worried that Pakistan might give the Chinese access to the half-destroyed chopper to enable them to study it. The handing-over of the chopper to the US authorities was one of the demands made by Kerry during his talks with the Pakistani authorities. Before Mrs. Clinton arrived, the Americans were allowed to take the half-destroyed chopper out of Pakistan.
Before the arrival of Mrs.Clinton, the Pakistani authorities also allowed a team of the CIA to jointly interrogate the three wives of OBL who were taken into custody by the Pakistani authorities after the naval commandos had left Abbottabad. Originally, the US plan was to take the wives to Afghanistan for interrogation, but this was abandoned by the US after its commandos lost a chopper. Pakistan also accepted another request of the US to allow a team from the CIA to make a detailed inspection of OBL’s residence.While the naval commandos had removed from the residence all documents, computers and computer material which they had found there, they were not able to make a detailed inspection of the house because of the short time at their disposal. They will now be able to do so though belatedly.
The US was worried that Pakistan might give the Chinese access to the half-destroyed chopper to enable them to study it.
There were two gestures from the US side. The first was the toning down of the suspicions of possible complicity with OBL at the higher levels of the Pakistani Government—particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) — which enabled him to live undetected for over five years at Abbottabad and direct the command and control of Al Qaeda from there. Mrs.Clinton has now ruled out the possibility of any complicity at the senior levels, but has continued to stress the need for a thorough enquiry regarding any possible complicity at the lower levels. The Pakistani Army and the ISI do not find any difficulty in accepting this demand.
The second US gesture was to agree to downsize the clandestine presence of US intelligence and special forces personnel in Pakistan to co-ordinate the counter-terrorism co-operation with their Pakistani counterparts. The US had agreed to make a small reduction in the number of US clandestine personnel posted in Pakistan even before the Abbottabad raid. This was in response to a Pakistani demand after the January incident involving Raymond Davis, a member of the administrative staff of the US Consulate at Lahore, who had allegedly killed two Pakistanis following his car. This has now been followed up by a reported US decision to cut down its clandestine personnel further. Apparently, after the death of OBL, the US does not feel the need for the persence of a large number of clandestine staff in Pakistani territory.Its decision to accommodate the Pakistani demand for a further reduction should not affect its capability on the ground in Pakistan significantly.
“¦the Pakistani Army had allowed a much larger US clandestine presence than admitted so far not only in the Pashtun belt, but even in the GHQ in Rawalpindi, to enhance US-Pakistan counter-terrorism co-operation”¦
Both the Pakistani and the US authorities have been embarrassed by the disclosure by ”Dawn” of Karachi of some diplomatic cables obtained from Wikileaks pertaining to the years 2008 and 2009. These cables, which had been sent by Anne Patterson, the then US Ambassador to Islamabad, to the US State Department clearly showed, firstly, that the Pakistani Army had allowed a much larger US clandestine presence than admitted so far not only in the Pashtun belt, but even in the GHQ in Rawalpindi, to enhance US-Pakistan counter-terrorism co-operation, and, secondly, that not only Pakistan’s political leadership, but even its military leadership had tacitly allowed the US to operate its Drone ( pilotless aircraft) over the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) while openly criticising them as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. If the Army had tacitly agreed to instances of wanton US violation of Pakistani sovereignty in respect of the Drone strikes, is it not legitimate to suspect as many, including me, are doing, that there must have been some tacit understanding relating to the Abbottabad raid too? All this post-May 2 hysterics about the so-called violation of Pakistani sovereignty is a ritual meant to calm public opinion in Pakistan.
One of the Wikileaks cables from Anne Patterson in Islamabad to the US State Department in May 2009, as published by ”Dawn”, states as follows:“We have created Intelligence Fusion cells with embedded US Special Forces with both SSG ( Special Services Group) and Frontier Corps (Bala Hisar, Peshawar) with the Rover equipment ready to deploy.Through these embeds, we are assisting the Pakistanis collect and coordinate existing intelligence assets. We have not been given Pakistani military permission to accompany the Pakistani forces on deployments as yet.”
By September, 2009, plans for joint intelligence activities had been expanded to include army headquarters. “Pakistan has begun to accept intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support from the US military for COIN (counterr-insurgency) operations,” Ms Patterson wrote. “In addition … intelligence fusion centers” had been established “at the headquarters of Frontier Corps and the 11th Corps and we expect at additional sites, including GHQ and the 12th Corps in Balochistan.”
“¦after the death of OBL, the US does not feel the need for the persence of a large number of clandestine staff in Pakistani territory.Its decision to accommodate the Pakistani demand for a further reduction should not affect its capability on the ground in Pakistan.
Even In April 2009, she had reported in a cable that the cell at Bala Hisar assisted in the Pakistan military operation then taking place in Lower Dir. “US Special Operations Command Force are assisting the FC at the Intelligence Fusion Cell at FC Headquarters with imagery, target packages, and operational planning.”
A US cable also said:“The 3rd Commando Group of the Pakistan Special Services Group (SSG) exploited the weakened state of the Taliban surrounding Daggar, the main city within Buner, to secure the city early on April 29.Although reported earlier that US officials would accompany the FC deployment to Daggar, a late-night decision on April 28 by the Pakistan Military General Headquarters (GHQ) denied the joint deployment, saying the FC had all the assets needed. Embassy will work with GHQ to determine the reason for the late change and to promote integrated operation support.”
In a cable of November 2009, Ms.Patterson said: “On a brighter note,there is the possibility that operations in the northern FATA may provide additional opportunities to embed US Special Operations Forces with FC units to provide ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] support and general operational guidance. If we can expand on what we have recently been doing in Bajaur Agency … with our embeds, it would be a significant opportunity to contribute to the pursuit of the TTP (the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan).”
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