Lack of trust undermines US-Pakistan partnership

Military differences between the two nations add stress to a tenuous relationship as Islamabad deals with a surge in violence.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi (right) chats with Richard Holbrooke (centre), US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, during a joint press conference after a meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad.Show less

ISLAMABAD // The US relationship with the Pakistani army has dipped to one of its lowest ebbs since the former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, joined the US-led alliance against terrorism almost eight years ago. The state of the relationship may be best viewed through a serving senior Pakistani military officer's assessment of why Washington has only just agreed to a joint operation to kill the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud.

"It was odd how until recently whenever we asked them to target Mehsud with a missile they would come back and say they were unable to do so due to bad weather," the senior officer said. "Why? Basically because until now they thought that Mehsud was useful to them. If the Pakistan army was thrown into a conflict with Mehsud that would mean that there would be more of our soldiers committed in the tribal areas and therefore less cross-border infiltration of militants to their side in Afghanistan."

Targeting Mr Mehsud may help to rebuild trust between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and the United States. But the relationship is fraught. "The two countries share the goal of counterterrorism, but they disagree on several key aspects," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a prominent political analyst. "There are strains in the relationship over each other's differing priorities. They have complaints about each other but they need each other. It is a paradox."

Adm Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to the region, visited Pakistan this week and came under fire over US missile strikes on Pakistani soil and over US accusations about Pakistani collusion with the Taliban. At a dinner held for journalists Adm Mullen repeated the view, long held by the US, that the Taliban leadership is hiding in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.

The head of the ISI, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, refused to meet separately with Mr Holbrooke and Adm Mullen, who had requested a meeting. The Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said: "We did talk about drones, and let me be very frank: there is a gap between us. The bottom line is the question of trust." In public, Pakistan's government opposes all strikes of this kind as a violation of the country's sovereignty. Behind the scenes, however, Pakistan's government is quietly passing on targeting information to Washington.

The United States has increased drone attacks and stepped up its accusations against Pakistan's military intelligence as militant attacks in Pakistan have intensified. Even yesterday, with Mr Holbrooke's visit still fresh, a pilotless US drone aircraft fired a missile in Pakistan's South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, killing three militants, a Pakistani intelligence official and residents said.

The forecasts for the country's future grow darker by the day. A recent Atlantic Council report said that time was running out to help Pakistan; David Kilcullen, an adviser to the Bush administration, said Pakistan could face "internal collapse" within six months, and the US president, Barack Obama, recently dubbed Pakistan the world's most dangerous place. In Peshawar yesterday, at least five people died in a gun battle with Taliban militants trying to expand their stronghold in the Swat valley, police said. The clash puts more strain on government efforts to reach a peace accord in the troubled region.

In other recent violence, 24 people were killed in a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque last Sunday in Chakwal, Punjab, one day after eight paramilitary soldiers were killed in a similar attack in the capital, Islamabad. On Saturday, a suicide bomber drove a vehicle into a group of civilians in Miram Shah, in the North Waziristan tribal area, killing at least eight people. The Fedayeen al Islam, a group led by Hakimullah Mehsud, a powerful deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Islamabad and Chakwal.

Hakimullah Mehsud said the Islamabad bombing had been in retaliation for a US missile attack launched on his base on April 1 in the Orakzai tribal area. The spate of attacks came a week after Mr Mehsud orchestrated a suicidal commando attack on a police training school in Lahore, in which eight police officers were killed and more than 90 wounded. Malik Naveed, the inspector general of police in the insurgency-hit North West Frontier Province, told a group of Pakistani parliamentarians last week that Taliban groups had merged with al Qa'eda and were spreading rapidly throughout the country.

Washington has expanded its offer of aid to US$1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) for each of the next five years and nearly $3bn in counterinsurgency aid to Pakistan's military. But Pakistani foreign officials demand that Washington shift away from a "transactional relationship" with Pakistan towards a strategic alliance. But mutual distrust prevails. Pakistan is deeply suspicious of US plans for India to play a central role in the region, and its intelligence officials are convinced that India is fanning a burgeoning nationalist insurgency in resource-rich Baluchistan.

Yesterday Mr Holbrooke and Adm Mullen visited India and sought to allay Indian concerns that Washington was pandering to Pakistani fears about India. There are also concerns that Pakistan wants a solution to disputed Kashmir as an element of any regional peace efforts, a condition that India rejects. "We did not come here to ask the Indians to do anything, we came here to inform them about our trip as we always do and to get their views. We did not come here with any requests," Mr Holbrooke said.