Have differences arisen between the United States and the military establishment in Pakistan over the former's strategy in getting at Osama and the Taliban regime? Yes, if the leading Pakistani English daily, The News, is to be believed.
In a front page report, the daily said that as the visiting U.S. defence officials and their Pakistani counterparts explored possibilities of co-operation for a possible military action in Afghanistan, the Musharraf Government is getting ``uncomfortable'' on the latest U.S. ``posturing'' on at least four issues.
These are, U.S. military assistance to the Northern Alliance, its insistence on action against jehadi groups within Pakistan, U.S. hesitation in getting a fresh U.N. endorsement for its military action and non-inclusion of Muslim states in the military coalition to fight against Afghanistan.
The Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman, Mr. Riaz Mohammad Khan, refused to answer a question on the subject saying he would not react to speculative reports. In the last few days, as a matter of policy, the U.S. Embassy here has been avoiding any reaction to press reports.
``While the specifics of Pakistani defence co-operation to the U.S. forces are being debated, the military leadership in Rawalpindi is being forced to reconsider its options following credible reports that the India-backed Northern Alliance was getting extensive military support from an international coalition headed by the U.S.,'' the paper said.
``It is unnatural to expect the Pakistan Army to support a military action that may drive the Northern Alliance from their present hideouts in Panjshir Valley to the seat of power in Kabul,'' it quoted a high-ranking military official as saying.
The newspaper said Pakistan, instead of propping up Afghan groups, wants the U.S. to focus its military action on training camps in Afghanistan. It said differences between the U.S. and Pakistan also developed over the former naming a Pakistani religious trust along with a jehad group in the list of 26 organisations to be targeted for financial crackdown.
The naming of the two ``multiplied doubts'' in Pakistan officials' minds about the ultimate objectives of the U.S. mission, it said. Pakistani officials fear that if the U.S. anti- terrorist campaign ultimately demanded that Pakistan enforce an effective ban on all Pakistan-based jehadi organisations, it would lead to a grave law and order situation in Pakistan and deal a major blow to the Kashmiri freedom struggle.
It said the Al-Rashid Trust, a charitable organisation which supplied daily bread to 125,000 people inside Afghanistan, is believed to be associated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the major jehadi organisations fighting Indian troops in Kashmir.
The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the second Pakistani organisation to figure in the U.S. list of targets, is a four-year-old organisation that had been founded after the U.S. had declared its parent organisation, Harkat-ul-Ansar, as a terrorist outfit.
Summing up the situation, the newspaper
quoted a high-ranking official of the Presidential Secretariat as saying
that ``It is now a question of providing assistance to almost an exclusive
American operation that lacks a firm U.N. support. There is a likelihood
that this military action may end up in installing a staunchly anti-Pakistan
Northern Alliance-dominated set-up in Afghanistan. The situation becomes
more difficult for Pakistan when in the second phase of this operation,
Pakistan is asked to pack up jehadi organisations from its soil.''