Taliban, artillery, and lies in Mohmand Agency

By Matt DupeeNovember 27, 2011

Image by The U.S. Army via Flickr

According to Pakistani officials. The heated diplomatic row between Pakistan and NATO over the incident has escalated, with Pakistan ordering the US to vacate a key airbase in Baluchistan and closing NATO’s supply lines through Jamrud in Khyber and Chaman in Baluchistan.

Senior Western and Afghan officials told reporters on Sunday that a small group of US and Afghan forces on patrol in Kunar province were fired on first from positions inside Pakistani territory, prompting calls for close air support which wiped out the two Pakistani mountain posts. However, the Pakistani military remains adamant that the attack should have been avoided. Major General Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistan military, told the Guardian that he did not believe ISAF or Afghan forces had received fire from the Pakistani side. “I cannot rule out the possibility that this was a deliberate attack by ISAF,” Abbas said. Afghan officials maintain that US and Afghan forces retaliated with airstrikes after coming under fire from the direction where the two military forts are located.

Pakistan’s unprecedented response to the attack in Mohmand is curious, especially given the countless reports over the past six months of Pakistani military forts shelling Afghan territory from positions in Mohmand, Dir, and Chitral. One such incident took place on June 18, prompting a similar US gunship raid against a Pakistani military post one mile inside Pakistani territory, also in Mohmand. The June attack came after a number of artillery shells fired from Pakistani territory struck homes in the Shunkrai area of the Sarkani (Sarkanay) district in eastern Kunar province. At the time, Kunar’s governor, Syed Fazlullah Wahidi, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the areas of Dangam, Shigal, and Sarkani were fired upon by Pakistani military positions for the better part of a week, with one strike killing four children in the Shigal district.

The Salala security posts are located in the Taliban-controlled Baizai area of Mohmand, a well-known hotbed of militant activity that has significantly impacted security on both sides of the border. Since March, numerous Taliban swarm attacks have ravaged Pakistani outposts in the region, prompting violent reactions from Pakistani forces who frequently shell suspected militant positions located in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces. Pakistani forces reportedly killed 65 Taliban fighters in the Baizai area in June alone. On Sept. 1, however, the Pakistani military claimed that a massive security operation had secured 80-85 percent of Mohmand and that 72 soldiers, including three officers, had been killed in the offensive against militants in the tribal agency.

CIA ordered to halt drone operations by Pakistan

Click to play videoTHE Pakistani government has responded to NATO air strikes that killed at least 25 soldiers by ordering the CIA to vacate the drone operations it runs from Shamsi Air Base in northern Pakistan and closing the two main NATO supply routes into Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials said that NATO aircraft hit two military posts at the northwestern border with Afghanistan. The country’s supreme army commander called the attacks unprovoked acts of aggression.

The CIA was given just 15 days to stop its drone operations. Among the two NATO supply routes into Afghanistan shut by the government was the one at Torkham. NATO forces receive about 40 per cent of their supplies through that crossing, which runs through the Khyber Pass. Pakistani officials gave no estimate as to how long the routes would be shut down.

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Cargo trucks, including those carrying supplies to NATO forces, are halted at the Pakistan-Torkham border as Pakistanis protest against the air strikes that killed 25 soldiers. Photo: Reuters

In Washington, US officials were scrambling to assess what had happened amid preliminary reports that allied forces in Afghanistan engaged in a firefight along the border with insurgents and called in airstrikes. Senior Obama administration officials were also weighing the implications on a relationship that took a sharp turn for the worse after a Navy SEAL commando raid killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad in May, and that has deteriorated since then.

Intelligence: Leave No One Behind

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September 13, 2011: Over the last four months, Pakistan has arrested several Pakistanis who aided the U.S. in finding Osama bin Laden, and has banned others from leaving the country. American intelligence officials want to get many of these helpful Pakistanis out of Pakistan, both to safeguard and reward them. This is crucial for future intelligence operations. If a country can demonstrate that it takes care of those who help, more will be willing to step forward. Otherwise, local help will be hard to find. Meanwhile, Pakistan continues to deny, at least publically, that it knew Osama bin Laden was hiding out in a military town (Abbottabad), surrounded by retired generals and less than a kilometer from the national military academy.