Pakistan yesterday demanded proof of charges in a new U.S. intelligence report saying al Qaeda had rebuilt its operations there, as an influential U.S. foreign-policy analyst called for a much tougher U.S. military line against Islamic militants in the country’s northwest.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told reporters in Islamabad that there were “unsubstantiated assertions” in the new National Intelligence Estimate released by the Bush administration Tuesday.
The analysis, a consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, concluded that al Qaeda had rebuilt its capacity to attack the United States in large part because of the sanctuary it had carved out in tribal lands along Pakistan’s loosely governed border with Afghanistan.
“We would firmly act to eliminate any al Qaeda hide-out on the basis of specific intelligence or information,” the spokeswoman said. “It does not help simply to make assertions about the presence or regeneration of al Qaeda in the bordering areas of Pakistan.”
But in Washington, former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, said it was clear al Qaeda had obtained such a base inside Pakistan and that the United States should take a much tougher line with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to act.
Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said Tuesday the United States stood ready to provide more military aid, training and support for Gen. Musharraf in the fight against Islamist fighters.
But Mr. Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who was a leading foreign-policy voice on Capitol Hill during his 34 years in Congress, said in a breakfast briefing sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor that the U.S. forces may have to do the job themselves.
“I believe it is necessary for the United States to go after al Qaeda” inside Pakistan, Mr. Hamilton said. He said such action could include hot pursuit by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, covert intelligence and Special Forces operations inside the tribal areas, and “more direct use of American military power, depending on the intelligence we have.”
“Our relationship with Pakistan needed to be reconsidered and re-evaluated,” Mr. Hamilton said.
He said the Bush administration had overstated Gen. Musharraf’s importance as an ally in the global war on terror and predicted that Islamist radicals were unlikely to come to power in Islamabad even if the general were ousted.
Asked what would happen if U.S. military action against al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan did undermine Gen. Musharraf’s power, Mr. Hamilton said, “That is a risk I would be willing to take.”
Commenting on the general criticism it has faced from some quarters in the United States, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday the nation was “determined not to allow al Qaeda or any other terrorist entity to establish a safe haven on its territory.” It also reiterated that no foreign security forces would be allowed to pursue militants in Pakistan.
“We have deployed troops, established check posts and done selective fencing. Any further action that needs to be taken against terrorist elements will be taken,” the ministry said.
Islamist fighters and pro-Taliban forces ended a 10-month truce in the border areas Sunday in the wake of the bloody end of a siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad last week. The Associated Press reported that 17 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 21 others wounded in clashes yesterday with militants in northwest Pakistan.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Pakistan’s pact last September to enlist local tribal leaders in the northwest in an effort to contain the Taliban and al Qaeda had clearly fallen short.
Gen. Musharraf’s “carrot diplomacy” has not worked, Mr. Snow said. “So what you have to do when something doesn’t work is to fix it, and that’s what’s going on now.”
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