Author: Sally Buzbee, Associated
Press Writer
Publication: The Associated Press
Date: May 14, 2002
The United States would like Pakistan
to do more to hunt any al-Qaida fighters finding refuge along the country's
lawless border with Afghanistan. But at a time when the United States depends
on Pakistan's president for many things - from countering an internal radical
Islamic threat to averting a nuclear crisis with India - U.S. officials
praise the help they get and are leery of publicly pushing for more.
"They are a sovereign nation," Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday, lauding Pakistan even though
local people say al-Qaida are hiding in the country's frontier tribal areas,
moving freely back and forth from Afghanistan.
Pakistan's government is working
on ways to deal with the tribal groups it has long granted autonomy, "so
that ... pockets of al-Qaida or Taliban can be routed out," Rumsfeld said.
In one apparent example, Pakistan's
government promised $167 million Monday for development projects in the
remote areas. Pakistan also has allowed U.S. Special Forces to join its
troops in recent weeks to look for al- Qaida and Taliban in the areas.
At the moment, a key U.S. goal is
sorting out which tribes are most likely to shield al-Qaida and Taliban,
and which may be willing to help the United States, said a defense official,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
has won praise from the Bush administration - and condemnation from Islamic
extremists - ever since abandoning his country's support for the Taliban
and siding with the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.
But the United States also has to
keep other priorities in mind - chief among them, ensuring that Pakistan
and India don't go to war over the disputed Kashmir region, said Teresita
Schaffer, a south Asia expert in Washington.
"The problem the United States has
had with Pakistan ever since last September is, 'What priority comes at
the top of the list?'" she said. "For certainly the first four months,
the Afghan operations came in at the top.
"But now, it's fairly clear that
a continuing hot border in Kashmir undercuts the rest of the agenda," Schaffer
said.
A top Pentagon official, Douglas
Feith, said Monday that the risk of war between Pakistan and India remains
"very large." A top State Department official will travel to the region
this week to try to calm tensions.
India is expected to soon say whether
it believes Musharraf has ended his government's past support for Kashmiri
militants, even as the spring thaw makes it more likely that militants
will enter the mountainous region contested by the two countries.
Musharraf has done less to restrain
Kashmiri militants than to help the United States along the border with
Afghanistan, Schaffer said. And domestic politics are pushing both Pakistan
and India to hardline positions, she said.
Feith warned that any Pakistan-India
war could undermine "everything he (Musharraf) is trying to accomplish
for Pakistan. ... We all have a stake in his success."
Meanwhile, the presence of U.S.
forces hunting al-Qaida inside Pakistan has angered the deeply conservative
Pakistani tribesmen who continue to back the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's
organization.
It's unclear whether al-Qaida are
setting up permanent bases inside Pakistan, or merely using tribal areas
to elude special forces, before then returning to Afghanistan when it's
safe.
Large numbers of Taliban and al-Qaida
have not been found in Pakistan's tribal areas, said the defense official
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But a spate of recent attacks on
foreigners inside Pakistan - including a suicide bombing that killed 11
French civilians - seems designed by al-Qaida sympathizers to shake confidence
in the government's ability to keep order.
Musharraf has appealed for both
international help and understanding as his government makes mass arrests
to try to control extremists.
The problem is that the attacks
are being waged by the same Kashmiri militants who Musharraf's military
and intelligence agency supported until Sept. 11, said the chairman of
the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Afrasyab Khattak.
Schaffer agreed: "It's become apparent,
you really can't keep these groups in watertight compartments."
