U.S. Says Pakistan Ties Have Strengthened

The U.S. military field reports released by WikiLeaks paint a picture of Pakistan from 2004 to 2009 in which the country's chief spy agency undermines and even inflames the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

But U.S. officials contend that in the past several months, Pakistan's stance has become much more nuanced than portrayed in the WikiLeaks reports, released Sunday by the document-publishing website. U.S. officials argue that the two nations have made strides in deepening military and civilian ties, chiefly in response to a Pakistani military offensive begun almost two years ago against Taliban militants operating on Pakistani soil. In return, the U.S. has pledged billions of dollars in new military and civilian aid.

The WikiLeaks documents, covering six years through December 2009, purportedly show in detail the involvement of the Inter-Services Intelligence military spy agency in numerous attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan. The reports couldn't be independently verified and U.S. officials have questioned their reliability. Pakistan has denied its spies have aided the Afghan insurgency or terrorism against India.

Many experts, including some U.S. officials and analysts in India, continue to suspect Pakistan's military and intelligence of fostering military ties with the U.S. in return for aid while fomenting the Afghan insurgency and regional terrorism.

U.S. officials are concerned that Pakistan's military continues to offer shelter to Afghan Taliban leaders and their allies because it believes they offer no threat to Pakistan and could play a significant role in Afghanistan after U.S. troops pull out. And India recently presented Pakistan with what it said was evidence that the ISI was directly involved in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, which killed more than 160 people.

But U.S. officials say they have seen a shift in Pakistan's attitudes toward the Taliban in the past 18 months.

"We have made progress in moving this relationship forward," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday. "What the Pakistanis have found is that the extremists that once enjoyed complete safe haven in parts of their country now threaten their country."

Pakistan's military in the 1990s funded and trained the Afghan Taliban, who were largely culled from the ranks of militants who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Since last year, the Pakistan Taliban, who are allied with the Afghan Taliban, began to threaten the Pakistan state, breaking out of their strongholds in the lawless tribal areas on the borders with Afghanistan to overrun the Swat Valley in the north and threaten other settled areas.

The Pakistani military responded with a military offensive that has pushed the militants back to a few areas of the tribal regions. The military cites more than 2,000 casualties so far as a mark of its seriousness in going after militants. The U.S. has supported this campaign with drone missile strikes, which have killed scores of top Taliban leaders.

In response, the Obama administration has also upgraded military and civilian government ties.

The U.S. Congress agreed in October to a $7.5 billion civilian aid package for Pakistan over the next five years. In March, ministers from both governments attended a high-level meeting in Washington aimed at building closer ties.

U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commanded North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan until last month, visited his Pakistani counterpart, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, every three weeks and touted their good relations as being a meaningful breakthrough in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.

"In the last year, we significantly ramped up consultations," said Rick Snelsire, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

Washington is pushing for deeper cooperation on counterterrorism. It has increased the U.S. military presence in Pakistan to about 230 personnel, including 120 Special Operations Forces involved in training and advisory roles. Pakistan doesn't allow U.S. combat forces to operate in Pakistan. The U.S. has trained more than 370 Pakistan military officers in counterterrorism, intelligence and other areas in the past few years.

The Central Intelligence Agency and ISI agreed this year to set up more U.S. listening posts in Karachi along with dispatching more officers from the CIA to the port city, a trade hub of 18 million people that militant and criminal groups also frequent. That dragnet is what led to the February arrest of the Taliban's second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

"There's a team of crack ISI and CIA people there now," a U.S. official said, adding that the operation is likely walled off from the wing of the ISI that U.S. officials hold with more suspicion because it maintains ties to Islamist militant groups.

The U.S. and Pakistan have also established centers to share military intelligence in cities like Quetta and Peshawar, U.S. officials said. "The partnership is guided in many ways by shared interests, especially when it comes to the problem of terrorism," another U.S. official said. "There's regular, robust, and candid dialogue between CIA and ISI officials, including when differences arise."

Still CIA officers are aware of Pakistan's historical relationships with militants, the official said. "Everyone's eyes are wide open."

In a sign of increased military cooperation, a military official at the U.S. Embassy points to an incident in February when Pakistan's Frontier Corps forced militants operating in the Bajaur tribal region to flee across the border to Afghanistan. Pakistan then informed coalition forces, which dropped precision-guided rockets on the group, killing more than a dozen militants.

To be sure, the U.S. remains deeply suspicious about Pakistan's motives. For one, it has repeatedly urged Pakistan to crack down on the remaining havens in the tribal regions from where al Qaeda-linked militant groups like the Haqqani network continue to launch attacks inside Afghanistan.

"Where we've seen good cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistanis is generally purely out of self interest," a U.S. military official said. That means Pakistan has been willing to help the U.S. target members of al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban—both of which the Pakistani government, including ISI, see as direct threats to the Pakistani state.

But there is far less cooperation in areas where national interests diverge, such as with the al Qaeda-affiliated groups like the Haqqani network that have tended to attack Afghan and Indian targets, U.S. officials said. In some cases, the U.S. has found evidence of the ISI providing Haqqani fighters with components that could be used for explosive devices as well as basic items like sleeping bags, they added.

The ISI has also provided Afghan Taliban members with financial help, intelligence, and assistance with strategic planning, the U.S. military official said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly raised U.S. concerns on a July 19 visit to Pakistan, stating she believed someone in the Pakistan government knew where al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was hiding in the tribal regions. Pakistan has replied it is too stretched fighting in other parts of the tribal regions to open a new front now.

Other Pakistani moves have been harder to read. U.S. officials welcomed Pakistan's arrest in February of Mr. Baradar, the Afghan Taliban's military chief, in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. The arrest raised hopes that Islamabad was finally cracking down on the Taliban.

But Pakistan has declined to hand Mr. Baradar over to Afghanistan. Some analysts believe Pakistan may have made the arrest to stop Mr. Baradar from pursuing peace talks with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai without input from Islamabad.After some tussling, the CIA gained access to Mr. Baradar for questioning and obtained useful details, U.S. officials say. The U.S. has had some access in the past few months, the U.S. military official added.