WASHINGTON – The United States has renewed pressure on Pakistan to expand the areas where CIA drones can operate inside the country, The Washington Post reported Saturday, citing the US and Pakistani officials said. But Pakistan has rejected the request, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Islamabad.
The US appeal was focused on the area surrounding Quetta, where US believes the Afghan Taliban leadership is based. But it also sought to expand the boundaries for drone strikes in the tribal areas, which have been targeted in 101 attacks this year, the officials said.
While rejecting the request, Pakistan has agreed to more modest measures, including an expanded CIA presence in Quetta, where the agency and PakistanÂ’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have established teams seeking to locate and capture senior members of the Taliban, the newspaper Post says, adding that the disagreement over the scope of the drone programme underscores broader tensions between the two allies.
Senior Pakistani officials, according to the Post, expressed resentment over what they described as misplaced pressure to do more, saying the United States, which has not controlled the Afghan side of the border, is preoccupied by arbitrary military deadlines and has little regard for PakistanÂ’s internal security problems.
“You expect us to open the skies for anything that you can fly,” said a high-ranking Pakistani intelligence official, who described the Quetta request as an affront to Pakistani sovereignty. “In which country can you do that?”
Confirming the request for expanded drone flights, the US officials cite concern that Quetta functions not only as a sanctuary for Taliban leaders but also as a base for sending money, recruits and explosives to Taliban inside Afghanistan.
“If they understand our side, they know the patience is running out,” an unnamed NATO military official was quoted as saying.
The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has accelerated dramatically in recent months, with 47 attacks recorded since the beginning of September, according to The Long War Journal. By contrast, there were 45 strikes in the first five years of the drone programme. But Pakistan places strict boundaries on where CIA drones can fly, according to the Post. The unmanned aircraft may patrol designated flight ‘boxes’ over the country’s tribal belt but not other provinces.
“They want to increase the size of the boxes, they want to relocate the boxes,” a second Pakistani intelligence official said of the latest US requests. “I don’t think we are going to go any further.”
Pakistani officials, according to the Post, stressed that Quetta is a densely populated city where an errant strike is more likely to kill innocent civilians, potentially provoking a backlash.
At the same time, the high-ranking Pakistani intelligence official say the CIA-ISI relationship is stronger than at any times since the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, and that the two spy services carry out joint operations ‘almost on a daily basis’.
“I wish [our] countries understood each other the way the CIA and ISI understand each other,” the official said. But he also traced Pakistan’s most acute problems, including an epidemic of militant violence, to the decisions by the government to collaborate with the United States.
Using the ISI to funnel CIA money and arms to ‘mujahideens’ in the 1980s helped oust the Soviets from Afghanistan, the official said, but also made Pakistan a breeding ground for militant groups.
Similarly, PakistanÂ’s cooperation since the 9/11 has been key to the capture of Al-Qaeda operatives and the success of the drone campaign. But it has inflamed radical elements in the country and made Islamabad a target of terrorist attacks.
“We’d not have been here if we had not supported the Afghan jihad, if we had not supported [the response to] 9/11,” the official said, adding, “It was our fault. We should have stood up.”
Barring the CIA from flying drones over Quetta, the official says, is one area in which Pakistan is now taking a stand.
In other areas, CIA-ISI cooperation has deepened, the paper says, as two the agencies have carried out more than 100 joint operations in the past 18 months, including raids that have led to the capture of high-ranking figures including Mullah Baradar, the TalibanÂ’s former military chief.
The Pakistani intelligence official said the operations had been mainly focused on Quetta. Teams based there relied on sophisticated surveillance technology and eavesdropping equipment provided by the CIA. “When a raid or capture is attempted, the ISI is in the lead.”
“The aim is to capture or arrest people based on intelligence primarily provided by Americans. The effort has been underway for a year, but now the intensity is much higher.”
Nevertheless, U.S. and Pakistani officials acknowledge that they have no high-profile arrests or other successes to show for their efforts.
The NATO military official said there had been intelligence-led operations against Taliban targets in Quetta in recent months but described them as small scale in nature.
The two sides disagree sharply over the importance of the ‘Quetta Shura’, the leadership council led by Mullah Mohammed Omar that presides over the Afghan Taliban. Senior Pakistani officials refuse to use the term, calling it the US construct designed to embarrass Pakistan.
“I’m not denying the individual presence of members of the Taliban in or near Quetta,” a senior Pakistani military official was quoted as saying in the Post. “But to create the impression there is a body micromanaging the affairs of the Afghan Taliban . . . is very far-fetched.”
The push to expand the drone strikes had come up repeatedly in recent months, Pakistani officials said, as the United States has also urged Pakistan to launch a military offensive in North Waziristan.
Pakistani officials ruled out a sweep anytime soon, saying the countryÂ’s military is still consolidating its hold on territory in Swat and South Waziristan, where tens of thousands of residents were displaced during operations to oust militants last year, the Post said.
The senior Pakistani military official said the US expectations had little to do with IslamabadÂ’s own national security calculations.
“You have timelines of November elections and July 2011 drawdowns – youÂ’re looking for short-term gains,” the official said, referring to President ObamaÂ’s pledge to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in July. “Your short-term gains should not be our long-term pain.”