Why Pakistan is unlikely to crack down on Islamic militants

[DogPoundPup]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

The Bush administration and its allies are pressing Pakistan to end its support for Afghan insurgents linked to al Qaida, but Pakistani generals are unlikely to be swayed because they increasingly see their interests diverging from those of the United States, U.S. and foreign experts said.

The administration sought to ratchet up the pressure last month by sending top U.S. military and intelligence officials to Pakistan to confront officials there with intelligence linking Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence to the Taliban and other militant Islamist groups.

When that failed to produce the desired response, U.S. officials told news organizations about the visit, and then revealed that the intelligence included an intercepted communication between ISI officers and a pro-Taliban network that carried out a July 7 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

The United States and Britain privately have demanded that Pakistan move against the Taliban's top leadership, which they contend is based near Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan Province, said a State Department official and a senior NATO defense official, who both requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.

Pakistan has been given "a pretty unequivocal message" to end ISI support for the militants and shake up the top ranks of the intelligence agency, the senior NATO defense official said.

On Friday, however, Pakistan vehemently rejected the allegations of ISI involvement in the Indian Embassy blast, which killed 41 and injured 141.

U.S. officials and experts said there's little chance that Pakistan will take any of the actions it's been asked to take.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/46178.html

[bemildred]

1. Because they can't?

Because there would be no Pakistan anymore if they tried? Something along those lines.

[varun]

2. Karzai says terrorism gaining deep roots in Pakistan

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080802/wl_nm/afghanistan_karzai_dc

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Terrorists were gaining a deeper grip in Pakistan, and were receiving institutional nurturing and support, Afghanistan's president said on Saturday, calling on South Asian countries to stop playing geo-political games.

"In Pakistan, terrorism and its sanctuaries are gaining a deeper grip as demonstrated by the tragic assassination of shaheed (martyr) Benazir Bhutto," Karzai told a summit of South Asian leaders, also attended by Pakistan's prime minister.

"While existing on the absolute fringes of our tolerant and peace loving societies, terrorists in our region receive, institutional nurturing and support. "It is this imbedded nature of terrorists that make it a much more sinister threat."

Relations between Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan have sharply deteriorated in recent months with Afghan officials repeatedly accusing Pakistani agents of secretly backing Taliban insurgents fighting Afghan and foreign troops on Afghan soil...

[ohio2007]

3. Rogue Pakistan spies aid Taliban in Afghanistan

snip
-if one more attack in Afghanistan or elsewhere were traced back to Pakistan, he * would have to take “serious action”.

Gillani also met Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, who confronted him with a dossier on ISI support for the Taliban. The key evidence concerned last month’s bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, which killed 54 people,


snip
Offer of Inquiry into Kabul attack

Pakistan yesterday offered to investigate the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7, in which 54 people died and 140 were injured. It was the bloodiest attack in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Nobody has claimed responsibility.


snip

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article4449330.ece

Pakistan IS the Taliban.

It's nothing new to India .

* Don't pretend Barak will spin it any other way. This is where he wants to take the fight after this seven year side step in Iraq is standing on its own.