Paks inability, unwillingness to strike terrorists necessitated US unilateral strikes

The US has increase strikes in Pakistans tribal areas after being convinced over the past six years that the Pakistan Army was neither able nor willing to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda and because some in its intelligence agency were sympathetic towards the extremists.

Washington, Sept 16 : The US has increase strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas after being convinced over the past six years that the Pakistan Army was neither able nor willing to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda.asp">Al Qaeda and because some in its intelligence agency were sympathetic towards the extremists.

The commando raids into Pakistan had been debated for years but the US finally decided to launch unilateral strikes in July after the Indian embassy bombing in Kabul and the Taliban attack on an outpost in eastern Afghanistan that killed nine US soldiers. "That was when the US decided that "enough was enough". The new orders reflect flagging confidence in Pakistan's civilian and military leadership to liquidate Taliban and terrorist safe havens in FATA," the Daily Times quoted an article in the Christian Science Monitor.

It said: "After seven years of encouraging Pakistan to take on extremists harboured in remote areas along its Afghan border and subsidising the Pakistani military for it, the US has become convinced that Pakistan is neither able nor willing to fight Taliban and al-Qaeda.asp">Al Qaeda elements. Recent events appear to have convinced at least some in the administration that parts of Pakistan's military and intelligence service are actually aiding the extremists."

The CSM article noted that on several occasions in the history of US such decisions had been taken by different US administrations. "Precedence for the orders authorising the attacks on terrorist havens can be found in President Bill Clinton's authorisation of retaliatory attacks in 1993 (against Iraqi intelligence facilities) and in 1998 (against terrorist camps in Afghanistan and Sudan), and in President Ronald Reagan's bombing of Libya, legal scholars say," said the article.

The US Defence Department's General Counsel also interpreted international law to authorise unilateral action under these circumstances. A 1999 General Counsel assessment of legal issues in information operations states -- "If a neutral nation is unable or unwilling to halt the use of its territory by one of the belligerents in a manner that gives it a military advantage, the other belligerent may have a right to attack its enemy in the neutral's territory."

ANI