Do Not Link Us With Afghanistan

The US could shift its focus on Afghanistan towards the eastern provinces, the Guardian has suggested.

Senior military officials are said to believe that the Taliban’s ability to find sanctuary across the border with Pakistan may have however, prompted this change of tact.

The primary focus of the US strategy in Afghanistan could shift towards the eastern provinces bordering Pakistan and away from the country’s south, where British forces are heavily engaged, under a plan being finalised by commanders, the newspaper reported.

Senior military officials are said to believe that the Afghan Taliban’s ability to find sanctuary and support across the border, in addition to the suspected presence of Al Qaeda in Waziristan, has necessitated a bigger effort in the East.

However, any move by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, to concentrate firepower and resources away from Helmand, in the south, could be resisted by British commanders leading an increasingly lethal struggle with insurgents there, the Guardian said.

Cause for concern: Additional US military pressure along the eastern border would also be cause for concern in Pakistan, where US drone attacks on Al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Waziristan are blamed for the growing instability in the country.

We decide: Asked whether Islamabad was being urged by Washington to launch more Swat-style offensives on its side of the border, a senior Pakistani official insisted Islamabad, not the US, would decide.

“Waziristan is part of Pakistani territory,” the official said. “We will decide what happens there, and when it happens,” he said.

US officials, speaking during a recent visit to the region by ‘AF-PAK’ envoy Richard Holbrooke, said particular attention should be paid to Jalaluddin Haqqani and other insurgent leaders in Afghanistan’s eastern mountains.

According to an account in the Washington Post, Major General Curtis Scaparrotti, US commander of forces in the East, said Haqqani “is the central threat” in the area and “he’s expanded his reach”.

This month, McChrystal presented the broad outline of his Afghanistan strategic review to Obama, placing greater importance on the need to protect Afghan civilians and increase security as a means of encouraging political and economic development.