[The relationship between the United States and Pakistan suffered a blow in January, when a CIA contractor shot two Pakistanis to death on the streets of Lahore. It was damaged again by the bin Laden operation in May. Underlining the depth of ill-feeling, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen accused Pakistan’s spy agency of supporting a deadly attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in September.]
By Simon Denyer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani army is bolstering air defenses along its Afghan border, including deploying shoulder-to-air missiles, officials said this week — a move that could threaten NATO aircraft and reflects the depths of anger and suspicion here after a deadly NATO airstrike.
Underlining how just raw the wounds still are within the Pakistani army, the head of military operations, Maj. Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem, told a Pakistani Senate committee Thursday that the strike in November that killed 24 soldiers was “a pre-planned conspiracy” and warned that Pakistan could expect more such attacks “from our supposed allies,” local newspapers reported.
It is a view widely shared within the military and among the general public here — that the United States carried out the attack to punish Pakistan for allowing Islamist militants to use its territory to launch attacks in Afghanistan.
The United States has expressed condolences to Pakistan for the “regrettable incident” but says it will not respond to demands for an apology until the Pentagon completes an investigation. The probe’s findings are not due to be released until Dec. 23.
Pakistan responded to the attack by closing U.S. and coalition military supply routes to Afghanistan and also boycotted an international conference in Germany on the future of Afghanistan.
But the latest move, potentially threatening NATO jets in the border region, underlines the depth of distrust in a relationship that many observers here say is now irreparably damaged, despite billions of dollars of U.S. aid to Pakistan over the past decade.
“Primarily it will be early warning systems, but there will be certain weapons deployed in certain areas,” deputy military spokesman Brig. Gen. Azmat Ali said Friday, stressing that the move was defensive rather than offensive in nature.
“It became very embarrassing for our troops. They were killed like sitting ducks,” he said, adding that the decision had been taken in response to pressure from the troops themselves. “If there is another attack, they should have something to defend themselves.”
Military officers said there were already some short-range anti-aircraft guns in the border region, but more had been deployed since May 2, when U.S. helicopters flew into Pakistan unnoticed to carry out a raid to kill Osama bin Laden.
Radar systems have also been upgraded since the Nov. 26 NATO airstrike, and shoulder-to-air missiles have been deployed in the border region along with small contingents of troops trained in their use, a military official said.
The rules of engagement have also changed: After the airstrike, army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani told commanders along the border they could return fire without awaiting permission from central command, as had been the case in the past.
“The field commanders have been provided with surface-to-air missiles that can be fired from the shoulder,” said a senior military official in Peshawar who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. “The missile system is run by a small team of three to four military people who are trained in firing the missiles.”
U.S. officials say the November airstrike occurred when a joint U.S. and Afghan patrol requested air support after coming under fire. They say they checked with the Pakistani military first to see whether Pakistani troops were in the area.
But Pakistan says the Americans gave the wrong coordinates, knew the location of the Pakistani base that was attacked and continued attacking for a considerable length of time even after the Pakistanis asked them to stop.
Javed Ashraf Qazi, head of the Pakistani Senate defense committee, said his panel supports the military’s plan to bolster air defenses but added that any deployment would be selective.
“You cannot deploy these systems on each and every outpost. Sometimes these posts are attacked by militants, and you may lose these weapons,” Qazi, a retired army general and former head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, told the Associated Press.
The relationship between the United States and Pakistan suffered a blow in January, when a CIA contractor shot two Pakistanis to death on the streets of Lahore. It was damaged again by the bin Laden operation in May. Underlining the depth of ill-feeling, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen accused Pakistan’s spy agency of supporting a deadly attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in September.
But the latest incident has sent relations into such a spiral that many observers wonder whether they can be rescued.
“It is almost like a point of no return,” said columnist and military expert Ayesha Siddiqa. “There is little left in the relationship.”
Pakistan’s military has been demanding a much smaller CIA footprint in the country and more information on what U.S. intelligence agents are doing here; more control over and information on drone strikes; and a greater role for Pakistan in Afghan reconciliation efforts. But those steps would require a certain level of trust, which at this point is conspicuously missing.
Observers here are skeptical about the chances of the two sides ever really patching up their differences, with future cooperation likely to be more limited and more covert. They say the two countries no longer share the same strategic goals in the region.
“This used to be the most pro-American army in Asia, but it is mind-boggling how things have turned around in the last 10 years,” said defense analyst and former helicopter pilot Ikram Sehgal. “In fact, the relationship has broken down.”
Special correspondents Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.
@ The Washington Post
@ The Washington Post
BRITAIN PONDERS NEW STATUS AS ODD MAN OUT
[Initial political reaction largely broke along party lines. Conservative lawmaker Mark Reckless told the BBC that Cameron was “as good as his word” and suggested that Britain could become more like Switzerland, which is not an E.U. member.(Video)]
By Karla Adam
LONDON — In the hours after their prime minister’s solo refusal to sign a pact aimed at easing Europe’s mounting debt crisis, Britons were left wondering Friday what his stand might mean for their country.
British news media did their best to supply instant interpretations of events at the two-day summit in Brussels, with headlines ranging from the Sun’s “Who Do You Think EU Are?” to the Guardian’s “Cameron and Europe: the English outpatient.” The Daily Mail homed in on “le snub,” when the French president refused to shake Prime Minister David Cameron’s hand.
“I think I did the right thing for Britain,” Cameron told the BBC, defending his decision to effectively torpedo an attempt to get all 27 members of the European Union to support treaty changes for greater fiscal union. “We were offered a treaty that didn’t have proper safeguards for Britain, and I decided it was not right to sign that treaty.”
Britain, which is a member of the European Union but outside the 17-nation euro zone, has long had a complicated relationship with the bloc, often dividing along party lines with the most anti -European sentiments found on the sidelines of the Conservative Party.
Cameron, who heads the Conservative Party, said that signing on to the pact — and the wave of regulations it would entail — would threaten London’s financial district, also known as “the City.”
The Financial Times questioned the efficacy of his move, however, declaring in an editorial that “an empty chair resolves nothing” and warning that “forcing the eurozone to set up its own parallel union” would not protect the City. “The new club’s 17 members could still force through big changes to the single market if they acted as a bloc,” it said.
Analysts said Cameron’s decision reflected pressure from euro-skeptics at home as much as considerations of Britain’s financial interests.
“The U.K. can’t get beyond where its people are, and the people are very euro-skeptic at the moment,” said Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “Tactically, I think this is the hand he had to play.”
Politically, Cameron will now have more freedom to focus on domestic issues, Niblett added, saying that he could also slap down the euro-skeptics in his party clamoring for further distancing from the European Union by saying: “You wanted me to be bold. I did it. Now back off.’”
William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, appeared on various media programs Friday to defend the government’s “sensible” decision while insisting that it would not leave Britain isolated — a word heard a lot here Friday.
Initial political reaction largely broke along party lines. Conservative lawmaker Mark Reckless told the BBC that Cameron was “as good as his word” and suggested that Britain could become more like Switzerland, which is not an E.U. member.
Opposition Labor Party leader Ed Miliband, meanwhile, criticized Cameron in his blog and said that the summit’s outcome was “looking increasingly worrying for the UK.”
Writing in the Guardian, columnist Michael White cautioned that isolation could prove illuminating.
“Europe, for all its follies and failings, has become a scapegoat for weaknesses that are really our own,” he wrote. “We may be about to rediscover that awkward truth.”
