What's the real story behind ISI chief Pasha's latest trip to Washington? (UPDATED July 15)

SecState Hillary Clinton arriving in India, July 2009
Things promise to be even rosier this time around

The (Pakistan) Express Tribune reports today that the Pakistani military's decision to send Inter Services Intelligence chief Lt. Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha to meet with acting CIA Director Michael Morell on Wednesday "was reportedly taken at the corps commanders’ meeting on Wednesday, a day after US central command head Gen James Mattis met with top military officials, including the Army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

The Express also reports:

The back-to-back meetings of military and intelligence officials follow the US administration’s decision earlier this week to withhold $800 million in military aid to punish Pakistan’s security establishment for expelling several dozen alleged American spies operating in the country.

Top Pakistani military commanders on Wednesday said they would use their own resources to carry forward the war on terror in what appeared to be a ‘mild but defiant’ snub to Washington’s move.

According to senior intelligence officials here, Pasha would tell the American spy chief that the ISI has no objection to anti-terror cooperation between the two agencies but would never tolerate a private ‘network’ the CIA is secretly maintaining in Pakistan.

“We are willing to cooperate with CIA in war on terror … but there is no room for a private network. That is our position and we are going to stick to that,” said an official, giving a hint of what would be discussed during Pasha’s interaction with the Americans.

The Pakistani military has been in the process of busting what is described as an underground human network the US established over the past decade.

These local individuals associated with the CIA are believed to have played a critical role in a secret manhunt that led up to the unilateral raid in which bin Laden was killed.

The US administration has been pushing Pakistani spy agencies to release at least several hundred people who were part of the CIA network and the issue is likely to feature during Pasha’s meetings as well.

But officials here said they believed the decision to dismantle these private clusters was final and there won’t be any second thoughts.[...]

The key phrase in the above is "an underground human network the US established over the past decade." Such a network couldn't have been established in Pakistan without the knowledge and tacit agreement of Pakistan's military, which explains why the military was quickly able to roll up so much of the network after the Abbottabad raid.

However, there was no need for Pasha to make a trip to Washington, or Langley, to explain a decision that's already known to the White House and CIA and which surely had already been discussed and debated at length during Mattis's meeting with Kayani. So why, then, would Kayani pack off Shuja to Washington on the heels of the meeting?

I'd venture it's because after hearing what Mattis had to say, Kayani knew that this week was the last opportunity he'd have before the second U.S.-India strategic dialogue to impress on select members of Congress that Pakistan has greater strategic importance to the USA than India. However, the more impressionable members of Congress might not be as inclined to lap up twaddle as in the past given recent developments.

Indian defense industry analyst Ajai Shukla detailed some of the developments in his June 28 report for India's Business Standard:

[T]he pivotal Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has asked the Pentagon to submit by November 1, 2011, a detailed assessment of the current state of US-India security co-operation and a five-year plan for enhancing that.

Noteworthy in itself is the bipartisan belief within the Committee that “it is in the national interest of the US, through military-to-military relations, arms sales, bilateral and multilateral joint exercises, and other means, to support India’s rise and build a strategic and military culture of cooperation and interoperability between our two countries, in particular with regard to the Indo-Pacific region”.

But far more substantive is the SASC’s call on the Pentagon for “a detailed assessment of the desirability and feasibility… [of] a potential US partnership with India to co-develop one or more military weapon systems, including but not limited to the anticipated program to replace the US Air Force T-38 trainer jet”.

This is the first time that the US Congress has officially demanded a report from the Pentagon on the US-India security relationship.[...]

Shukla goes on to note that the fledgling U.S.-Indian defense partnership got off to a rocky start. However, much has changed, even since the first strategic dialogue in June 2010. Round two of the dialogue, taking place in the post-Abbottabad era, promises a reset in thinking on both sides:

Clinton visit: US committed to nuclear deal
Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, July 14, 2011

The US on Thursday underlined its commitment to full civilian nuclear cooperation with India as the two countries look to expand their counter-terror cooperation and discuss ways to stabilise the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan region at their second strategic dialogue here next week.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touches down here July 18 on a three-day visit that also includes a trip to Chennai, the hub of top-billing American investments.

Clinton will hold the second India-US strategic dialogue with external affairs minister SM Krishna in New Delhi on Tuesday that will encompass a broad spectrum of issues ranging from counter-terrorism and security to civil nuclear cooperation, defence and closer cooperation in science and technology.

She will also meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

On the table will be the fate of the landmark India-US nuclear deal that has become a shade complicated following the Nuclear Suppliers Group's new guidelines adopted at its meeting in the Netherlands last month. The new norms effectively ban the export of enrichment and reprocessing technologies (ENR) to countries which have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“We want to implement all agreements which include 123 (bilateral civil nuclear pact) and waiver (granted by the Nuclear Suppliers Group in September 2008). No doubt nuclear issue will be discussed,” US Charge d’Affaires A. Peter Bulreigh told reporters here ahead of Clinton's visit.

“As far as the US is concerned, it will fully implement agreements made and move forward…and American companies will have contracts like other countries,” he said.

Clinton is likely to reassure India that the new guidelines will not impact the clean waiver granted by the 46-nation nuclear cartel to India in September 2008 that reopened the doors for global nuclear commerce for New Delhi after a hiatus of 34 years.

Clinton is also expected to share Washington's outreach efforts to help India become a member of the top four multilateral nuclear export regimes, including the NSG, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Australia Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

The US diplomat stressed that the US has removed most of Indian entities from the export control list and assured that the existing barriers in the way of high-tech trade will come down soon.

Counter-terror cooperation will be high on the agenda, an issue that has acquired added piquancy following July 13 Mumbai serial blasts that killed 17 people and injured over 130.

US Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper and Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute will be among those accompanying Clinton to India. They will be discussing issues relating to intelligence-sharing and deepening of counter-terror cooperation.

Terming the [serial terrorist blasts in Mumbai on July 13, 2011] as "despicable", Clinton has made it clear that she would go ahead with her visit to New Delhi for the strategic dialogue and said it is more important than ever to stand with India in the struggle against terrorism.

Issues relating to the stability of Afghanistan-Pakistan region will also figure prominently in the talks.[...]

UPDATE July 15
Reuters reported last night:

"The discussions today between General Pasha and the acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency went very well," a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. "They agreed on a number of steps that will improve Pakistani and U.S. national security," the official said, without disclosing any more details.

At the very end of the report Reuters noted:

Pasha had also been expected to meet with the heads of congressional intelligence committees during his visit, but the meeting did not happen because of time constraints, a U.S. source familiar with the visit said.

So he got the Bum's Rush, huh? Well I guess this means the more impressionable members of Congress are not quite as impressionable as they used to be, or have less patience with twaddle since Abbottabad.

"When will Egypt go broke?"

Trust Spengler to sort out the answer.

America's Light Footprint Era (Revised)

Regarding the revision, kindly see the note at the end of this post.


Zenpundit's Mark Safranski, who read the tea leaves correctly about the limitations of POPCOIN (population-centric counterinsurgency) tactics in Afghanistan, has, I believe, done it again in his latest post, The Tip of a Shadowy Spear . If you want to know what the newly-minted U.S. counterterrorism strategy will look like on the military end, and how the newest phase of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan is shaping up, read Mark's essay.

Mark concludes with the observation, "America is headed into the Light Footprint Era, ready or not."

The light footprint will require heavy reliance on special forces and thus, the title of his post. What happens, however, when the tip of the military's spear (special forces) becomes part of the shaft, as the lighter U.S. footprint will demand? Mark's analysis isolates the major downsides of the approach and in this passage raises questions that extend far beyond battle tactics:

Thirdly, an emphasis on a special forces dominant force structure may have the unintended consequence of causing the executive branch civilian officials to move even further away from strategic thinking and incline them more toward reactive, tactical, retaliation.

Misuse of special forces is the American historical norm. Special forces are so well suited for “emergency use” that they are frequently employed for every “priority” mission except those that are intended to have a strategic effect, even when a regular military unit of combat infantry is more than adequate for the task at hand (Or for that matter, using non-military options!) [...]

Although the writing is primarily addressed to the defense policy community and makes use of military terms, the general reader will only need to surmount a few acronyms to understand the ideas put forth. ("AVF" simply means an all-volunteer force, as the U.S. military has today.) But because Mark invokes two terms (FID and mass) that have more than one interpretation (e.g., different branches of the U.S. military have different standardized definitions of what constitutes mass) and branch into somewhat complex concepts, I wrote to ask that he explain what he meant by the terms in the context of his discussion. He replied:

I meant "mass" in the simple terms of large, conventional, deployments as we have in Afghanistan and had in Iraq. [...]

Foreign Internal Defense (FID) are the training and advisory missions and military aid programs extended to other countries facing insurgencies. US special forces, usually Green Berets, teach, train and advise allied armies and police in unconventional warfare, COIN and special forces tactics but do not take a leading combat role as in COIN campaigns. FID missions are quiet, cheap and small in terms of personnel. COIN campaigns feature US forces doing the above but taking a major combat role until the allied forces can assume the burden themselves (Vietnamization).

COIN has a checkered and fiercely debated historical record. Why do we keep doing it? Because the alternative at the moment of decision is usually the collapse of the ally and that involves a hard strategic assessment of the ally's worth, which seldom happens. Easier to punt and play for time.

NOTE -- 2:45 PM ET

Mark doesn't read tea leaves of course, nor (to my knowledge) does he have a functioning crystal ball; he does have excellent powers of observation, which led him to spot several trends that have building for many months and note how these were starting to converge. The result in my opinion is the clearest picture available to the general reader of how U.S. warfare is evolving to meet the challenges of the present era.

Yet the picture has so many wider implications that it's almost impossible to resist the temptation to use it as a springboard for many policy and philosophical discussions. Mark himself, as I indicate above, didn't resist reading in a few implications. My response to the essay was to ruminate so much on the wider implications that my original title for this post was, "East of the Danube" lol. (Don't ask.)

I finally chopped down my discussion to one paragraph, which I've now decided to delete even though I'm fond of it and will probably re-deploy it in a future essay. I did this because Mark has written an important essay, one that deserves to be studied on its own merits before hanging all number of glittering ornaments on it.

By December up to 75 percent of U.S. military supplies for Afghan War will not be shipped through Pakistan

Passengers boarding a Tashkent-bound train in Termez, the Uzbek station nearest the Afghan border, June 25. Soon trains from here will be going to the Afghan cities of Hairatan and Mazar-i-Sharif.

Photo: Maksim Yeniseyev

As recently as 2009, the U.S. military moved 90 percent of its surface cargo through Pakistan ... Today, almost 40 percent of surface cargo arrives in Afghanistan from the north, along a patchwork of Central Asian rail and road routes that the Pentagon calls the Northern Distribution Network. Military planners said they are pushing to raise the northern network’s share to as much as 75 percent by the end of this year.

Whenever I feature an entire report from a news organization rather than quoting a few paragraphs I have strong reasons for doing so, as with the following Washington Post report.

In this case I want to direct your attention to the amount of space that the Washington Post gives to complaints about the human rights abuses of Russia-friendly nations in the northern supply network. I observe with bitterness that if, during the past decade, the U.S. Department of State and "human rights groups" had invested a fraction of the effort in criticizing Pakistan's regime and human rights abuses as they've done in criticizing such nations, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan not to mention Pakistan's human rights/democracy activists would be in much better shape than they are today.

I have the same feelings about the slowness with which the U.S. military has devised alternate transport routes. If only the U.S. public had known as early as 2007 that its tax dollars were going toward helping Pakistan's military murder U.S. troops, it would have raised such a hue and cry that by 2009 -- when the "reset" of U.S. relations with Russia finally allowed the U.S. military to begin using former Soviet republics as alternate supply routes -- there would have been no U.S. supplies transported through Pakistan since then.

That would have given the U.S. a huge tactical advantage in the Afghan War -- one that it threw away with its almost exclusive reliance on Pakistan as a supply route. And the advantage would have helped save God Knows how many Afghans and NATO forces from being killed and maimed by Taliban working under the direction of Pakistani military advisors.

The State Department wasn't interested in tactical advantage; it was interested in expansion of its power. Thus, it found in the success of the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) approach in Iraq a way to increase its budget by applying the approach to Afghanistan. State also saw a bonanza for its contractors (and thereby another avenue to increasing its budget) by pushing for increased USAID projects in Pakistan.

All this meant State had to blind itself to the fact that Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism, a democracy in name only, and the primary enemy combatant against NATO forces in Afghanistan. Not to mention the fact that State's pushing for nation building efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan added to the huge amount of non-military stuff that NATO convoys had to haul through Pakistan.

Read USAID's April interview with General John Allen -- now the head of ISAF and U.S. forces in Afghanistan -- for an idea of whether State has turned over a new leaf since the U.S. public learned that Pakistan is conducting a covert war on the United States. When pigs fly will State return of its own cognizance to being only a foreign office.

With regard to the WaPo report's discussion about the poor condition of the railway system in Uzbekistan -- see this June 29 report from Central Asia Online (not to be confused with Asia Times Online) titled, Uzbek-Afghan railway to start running in July. Note that the Asian Development Bank financed much of the vital railway project. And the WaPo report mentions that in February Uzbekistan announced that it had received $218 million loan from Japan to upgrade the line to the Afghan border.

If you ask why the World Bank -- still a U.S.-led organization despite China's great influence there -- didn't finance such loans, go ask the Pentagon and U.S. Department of State to speed-dial their buddies in the 'Get Russia' crowd for the answer. You might also ask State whether any USAID funds ever went to helping Uzbekistan upgrade a portion of their railway system so that U.S. military supplies could be more reliably shipped via that route.

More a logistics nightmare than a "miracle" but by gum the routes skirt Pakistan

Source: National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. By Gene Thorp - The Washington Post

See the following report at the Washington Post website for source links.

U.S. turns to other routes to supply Afghan war as relations with Pakistan fray

By Craig Whitlock
July 2, 2011
The Washington Post

The U.S. military is rapidly expanding its aerial and Central Asian supply routes to the war in Afghanistan, fearing that Pakistan could cut off the main means of providing American and NATO forces with fuel, food and equipment.

Although Pakistan has not explicitly threatened to sever the supply lines, Pentagon officials said they are concerned the routes could be endangered by the deterioration of U.S.-Pakistan relations, partly fed by ill will from the cross-border raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Memories are fresh of Pakistan’s temporary closure of a major crossing into Afghanistan in September, resulting in a logjam of hundreds of supply trucks and fuel tankers, dozens of which were destroyed in attacks by insurgents.

While reducing the shipment of cargo through Pakistan would address a strategic weakness that U.S. military officials have long considered an Achilles’ heel, shifting supply lines elsewhere would substantially increase the cost of the war and make the United States more dependent on authoritarian countries in Central Asia.

A senior U.S. defense official said the military wants to keep using Pakistan, which offers the most direct and the cheapest routes to Afghanistan. But the Pentagon also wants the ability to bypass the country if necessary.

With landlocked Afghanistan lacking seaports, and hostile Iran blocking access from the west, Pentagon logisticians have limited alternatives.

“It’s either Central Asia or Pakistan — those are the two choices. We’d like to have both,” the defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid alienating Pakistan. “We’d like to have a balance between them, and not be dependent on either one, but always have the possibility of switching.”

U.S. military officials said they have emergency backup plans in case the Pakistan routes became unavailable.

“We will be on time, all the time,” said Vice Adm. Mark D. Harnitchek, deputy commander of the U.S. Transportation Command, which oversees the movement of supplies and equipment.

In such an event, however, the military would have to deliver the bulk of its cargo by air, a method that might not be sustainable; it costs up to 10 times as much as shipping via Pakistan.

“We’d have to be a little bit more mindful of what we put in the pipe,” Harnitchek said.

The Defense Department is already boosting the amount of cargo it sends to Afghanistan by air. To save on costs, the military is shipping as many of those supplies as possible to seaports in the Persian Gulf before loading them on planes bound for the war zone.

As recently as 2009, the U.S. military moved 90 percent of its surface cargo through Pakistan, arriving by ship at the port in Karachi and then snaking through mountain passes, deserts and remote tribal areas before crossing the border into Afghanistan. The Pakistan supply lines are served entirely by contractors instead of U.S. military convoys and are vulnerable to bandits, insurgents and natural disasters.

Today, almost 40 percent of surface cargo arrives in Afghanistan from the north, along a patchwork of Central Asian rail and road routes that the Pentagon calls the Northern Distribution Network. Military planners said they are pushing to raise the northern network’s share to as much as 75 percent by the end of this year.

Obama administration officials said they are negotiating expanded agreements with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries that would allow for the delivery of additional supplies to the Afghan war zone. Washington also wants permission to withdraw vehicles and other equipment from Afghanistan as the U.S. military prepares to pull out one-third of its forces by September 2012.

By shifting the burden to Central Asia, however, the U.S. military has become increasingly reliant on authoritarian countries, prompting criticism from human rights groups that the Obama administration is cozying up to dictators.

For instance, more than one-third of the northern-route cargo passes through tiny Azerbaijan, a country saddled by “pervasive corruption,” according to the State Department’s annual human rights report. U.S. defense officials also say the northern supply lines would not be possible without the cooperation of Russia. One new route runs through Siberia.

The biggest potential choke point, however, lies in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic that borders northern Afghanistan. It previously had kicked the U.S. military out of the country after Washington complained about the killing of hundreds of protesters in 2005.

But as the United States has deepened its involvement in Afghanistan, relations with Uzbekistan have warmed up again. Today, more than 80 percent of supplies shipped along the Northern Distribution Network pass through the country.

Expanded supply lines

The northern routes were developed in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration. Since then, the U.S. government has expanded the network into a spiderweb of supply lines.

Some start at Baltic seaports and run through Russia and Central Asia by rail. Another key line picks up traffic on the Black Sea and funnels it through the Caucasus region. One winding truck route begins at a U.S. Army depot at Germersheim, Germany, and ends, an average of 60 days later, at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. As with the Pakistan routes, the deliveries are all made by contractors.

“If you look at what we’ve done there in the last two years, we look at it more or less as a logistics miracle,” said Alan F. Estevez, the Pentagon’s principal deputy assistant secretary for logistics.

There are two big limitations, however, on what the Pentagon can ship through Central Asia. First, supplies are generally restricted to food, water and construction material; ammunition, weapons and other “lethal” cargo are prohibited.

Also, the routes are strictly one-way. Nothing can be shipped back out of the war zone.

U.S. officials said they are trying to negotiate deals with several countries to remove those restrictions. That will be crucial as the United States withdraws 33,000 troops from Afghanistan over the next 15 months, military leaders said.

Perhaps the most vital section in the northern network is a rail line that crosses south through Uzbekistan and over the Amu Darya river to reach Hairaton, Afghanistan. About five out of every six cargo containers travel this route.

“In reality, Uzbekistan is really at the center of all these routes,” said Alexander Cooley, a Barnard College professor and an expert on U.S. military relations in Central Asia. “They’re certainly in the catbird seat. And they know it.”

The final leg of the Uzbek rail line, from the city of Karshi to the Afghan border, underscores how the U.S. military has been forced to rely on rickety routes to sustain its troops.

In November 2009, U.S. embassy officials in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, were warned by a confidential source that the tracks were brittle and at risk of fracturing if trains carried more than half their usual loads. On top of that, the Soviet-era locomotives carrying U.S. cargo were not designed to cross steep mountains; engineers had to apply the brakes almost constantly as they moved downhill.

“By the time the trains have descended from the mountains, the wheels are glowing red hot,” the embassy reported in a diplomatic cable. The source, an engineer, said he was “appalled by how long it takes to transport anything by rail in Uzbekistan” and that he refused to take the train for fear of a crash.

The cable, titled “Uzbek Rail: Red Hot Wheels to Afghanistan” and obtained by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, concluded that “a train wreck is possible in the literal sense.”

U.S. military officials said they knew of no accidents or safety problems on the 200-mile rail segment. In February, Uzbekistan announced it had obtained a $218 million loan from Japan to upgrade the line to the Afghan border.

Human rights concerns

Uzbekistan has been assailed by human rights groups for repression under President Islam Karimov, who has ruled the country since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Freedom House, a Washington-based advocacy group, ranks it as one of the nine worst countries in the world for civil liberties and political rights.

From 2001 to 2005, the U.S. military relied on an Uzbek air base as a hub for combat and supply missions to Afghanistan. U.S. forces were evicted from the base after Washington pressured Karimov to allow an international probe into the deaths of hundreds of anti-government protesters in the province of Andijan.

Since 2008, however, Washington has steadily worked to repair relations. A stream of U.S. military leaders and diplomats has visited Tashkent, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in December and Denis McDonough, the deputy national security adviser, in late May. Uzbekistan, in turn, has reopened its railroads, highways and airspace for U.S. cargo.

Thomas M. Sanderson, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the Obama administration has continued to raise human rights concerns with Uzbekistan but that the Afghan supply routes usually take precedence.

“There is no doubt about it. We are there for one primary reason, and that is to enable our operations in Afghanistan,” said Sanderson, who has studied the Northern Distribution Network.

State Department officials said they do not hesitate to press Uzbekistan to improve its human rights record. When Clinton visited Tashkent, they noted, she made a point of meeting activists and calling for the release of jailed journalists.

“We’ve made a real effort to try to engage Uzbekistan on human rights and in trafficking persons, and in some cases there’s been some progress,” said Robert O. Blake, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia. “This is something that’s in their own interest to do, to allow greater freedom of religion and greater freedom of expression.”

Diplomatic cables, however, show Uzbek officials have not hesitated to demand U.S. restraint on human rights in exchange for cooperation on the supply routes.

In March 2009, shortly after the State Department gave an award to an Uzbek human rights activist, Foreign Minister Vladi­mir Norov made an “implicit threat” to suspend deliveries to Afghanistan, according to a cable signed by Richard B. Norland, the U.S. ambassador in Tashkent at the time.

An angry Karimov also complained to Norland personally.

“Put yourself in my place,” Karimov told the ambassador, according to the cable. “Would you trust me if I had done this?”

In that cable and others to Washington, Norland counseled the Obama administration to check its public criticism of Karimov to maintain the viability of the supply lines. In advance of a visit to Tashkent by a senior State Department official, Norland advised using “private, but frank diplomacy” to cajole Uzbekistan rather than “more openly coercive measures.”

“Uzbek pride often gets the better of rationality and officials here will think nothing of cutting off their nose to spite their face,” Norland added in a July 2009 cable.

The killing of Saleem Shahzad: White House fingers ISI as prime suspect

Visit the Times website for source links in the following report:

Pakistan's Spies Tied to Slaying of a Journalist
by Jane Perlez and Eric Schmitt
July 4, 2011
The New York Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Obama administration officials believe that Pakistan’s powerful spy agency ordered the killing of a Pakistani journalist who had written scathing reports about the infiltration of militants in the country’s military, according to American officials.

New classified intelligence obtained before the May 29 disappearance of the journalist, Saleem Shahzad, 40, from the capital, Islamabad, and after the discovery of his mortally wounded body, showed that senior officials of the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, directed the attack on him in an effort to silence criticism, two senior administration officials said.

The intelligence, which several administration officials said they believed was reliable and conclusive, showed that the actions of the ISI, as it is known, were “barbaric and unacceptable,” one of the officials said. They would not disclose further details about the intelligence.

But the disclosure of the information in itself could further aggravate the badly fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan, which worsened significantly with the American commando raid two months ago that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistan safehouse and deeply embarrassed the Pakistani government, military and intelligence hierarchy. Obama administration officials will deliberate in the coming days how to present the information about Mr. Shahzad to the Pakistani government, an administration official said.

The disclosure of the intelligence was made in answer to questions about the possibility of its existence, and was reluctantly confirmed by the two officials. “There is a lot of high-level concern about the murder; no one is too busy not to look at this,” said one.

A third senior American official said there was enough other intelligence and indicators immediately after Mr. Shahzad’s death for the Americans to conclude that the ISI had ordered him killed.

“Every indication is that this was a deliberate, targeted killing that was most likely meant to send shock waves through Pakistan’s journalist community and civil society,” said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the information.

A spokesman for the Pakistan intelligence agency said in Islamabad on Monday night that “I am not commenting on this.” George Little, a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, declined to comment.

In a statement the day after Mr. Shahzad’s waterlogged body was retrieved from a canal 60 miles from Islamabad, the ISI publicly denied accusations in the Pakistani news media that it had been responsible, calling them “totally unfounded.”

The ISI said the journalist’s death was “unfortunate and tragic,” and should not be “used to target and malign the country’s security agency.”

The killing of Mr. Shahzad, a contributor to the Web site Asia Times Online, aroused an immediate furor in the freewheeling news media in Pakistan.

Mr. Shahzad was the 37th journalist killed in Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Pakistan’s civilian government, under pressure from the media, established a commission headed by a Supreme Court justice to investigate Mr. Shahzad’s death. The findings are scheduled to be released early next month.

Mr. Shahzad suffered 17 lacerated wounds delivered by a blunt instrument, a ruptured liver and two broken ribs, said Dr. Mohammed Farrukh Kamal, one of the three physicians who conducted the post-mortem.

The anger over Mr. Shahzad’s death followed unprecedented questioning in the media about the professionalism of the army and the ISI, a military-controlled spy agency, in the aftermath of the Bin Laden raid.

Since that initial volley of questioning, the ISI has mounted a steady counter-campaign. Senior ISI officials have called and visited journalists, warning them to douse their criticisms and rally around the theme of a united country, according to three journalists who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.

Mr. Shahzad, who wrote articles over the last several years that illuminated the relationship between the militants and the military, was abducted from the capital three days after publication of his article that said Al Qaeda was responsible for an audacious 16-hour commando attack on Pakistan’s main naval base in Karachi on May 22.

The attack was a reprisal for the navy’s arresting up to 10 naval personnel who had belonged to a Qaeda cell, Mr. Shahzad said.

The article, published by Asia Times Online, detailed how the attackers were guided by maps and logistical information provided from personnel inside the base.

Particularly embarrassing for the military, Mr. Shahzad described negotiations before the raid between the navy and a Qaeda representative, Abdul Samad Mansoor. The navy refused to release the detainees, Mr. Shahzad wrote. The Pakistani military maintains that it does not negotiate with militants.

Mr. Shahzad prided himself on staying out of the mainstream press, preferring, he wrote in a preface to his recently published book, “Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” to challenge the “conventional wisdom.”

He had submitted articles to Asia Times Online, which claims 150,000 readers, since 2001, when he was a reporter in Karachi uncovering corruption in the public utility, the editor of the Web site, Tony Allison, said.

He broke into the limelight two years ago with an interview with Ilyas Kashmiri, a highly trained Pakistani militant allied to Al Qaeda. Mr. Kashmiri is believed to have been killed in a drone attack in early June.

According to associates, Mr. Shahzad cultivated contacts inside the military and the intelligence agency and members of militant groups, some from his student days in Jamaat Islami, a religious political party.

Some of his stories were threaded with embellishments. Soon after the Bin Laden raid, Mr. Shahzad wrote that Gen. David H. Petraeus visited the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and informed him, an account the White House strongly disputes. Pakistani journalists questioned the authenticity of some of Mr. Shahzad’s reporting: whether those doubts arose from professional jealousy or were well founded was never clear.

But the ISI had been interested in Mr. Shahzad for some time. In an e-mail written to Ali Dayan Hasan, the head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, which Mr. Shahzad instructed Mr. Hasan to release if something happened to him, Mr. Shahzad gave details of an Oct. 17 meeting at ISI headquarters, where two senior officials in the press section wanted to discuss an article he had written about the release of an interrogated Afghan Taliban commander, Abdul Ghani Baradar.

At the end, Mr. Shahzad said, he had been given what Mr. Hasan said he understood to be a veiled death threat from the head of the press section, Rear Adm. Adnan Nazir. “We have recently arrested a terrorist and recovered a lot of data, diaries and other material during the interrogation,” Mr. Shahzad quoted Admiral Nazir saying. “The terrorist had a list with him. If I find your name in the list, I will certainly let you know.”

In its statement after the death of Mr. Shahzad, the ISI said the agency notifies “institutions and individuals alike of any threat warning received about them.” There were no “veiled or unveiled threats” in the e-mail, the ISI said.

Hameed Haroon, the publisher of Dawn, an English-language newspaper and the head of the newspaper publishers’ association in Pakistan, said that the journalist had confided to him that “he had received death threats from various officers of the ISI on at least three occasions in the past five years.”

It was possible that Mr. Shahzad had become too cavalier, said Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani columnist and author.

“The rules of the game are not completely well defined,” she said. “Sometimes friendly elements cross an imaginary threshold and it is felt they must be taught a lesson.”

The efforts by the ISI to constrain the Pakistani news media have, to a degree, worked in recent days. The virulent criticism after Mr. Shahzad’s death has tempered a bit.

A Pakistani reporter, Waqar Kiani, who works for the British newspaper The Guardian, was beaten in the capital after Mr. Shahzad’s death with wooden batons and a rubber whip, by men who said: “You want to be a hero. We’ll make you a hero,” the newspaper reported. Mr. Kiani had just published an account of his abduction two years earlier at the hands of intelligence agents.

Jane Perlez reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.

What amazing luck! Within 24 hours of attack on InterContinental Hotel, ISAF locates a prime suspect!

Alternative to luck theory:

Hi, I'm just calling to say how much I've enjoyed working with you. Thank you. Yes, I'm cleaning out my desk now. No; no plans at this time to write another memoir. By the way, about that InterCon business; would you mind asking General Pasha if he could maybe check around and get a firm lead on who coordinated the attack and where to find him? Uh huh. Uh huh. Of course he has every right to be angry about all the negative publicity about the ISI but you know Langley is still pretty ticked off about Khost. Look, tell him it's not as if we're asking for Haqqani or Omar; just someone high enough on the food chain to make Centcom happy.

ISAF airstrike kills senior Haqqani Network commander involved in Kabul hotel attack
By Bill Roggio
The Long War Journal
June 30, 2011

Coalition special operations forces killed a senior Taliban commander who was involved in a suicide assault on a hotel in Kabul just two days ago.

Ismail Jan, the Haqqani Network commander, was killed yesterday in "a precision airstrike" in the Gardez district in the eastern province of Paktia. The special operations forces targeted Jan "after receiving several intelligence reports from Afghan government officials, Afghan citizens, and disenfranchised insurgents," the International Security Assistance Force stated in a press release that announced Jan's death.

ISAF described Jan as a deputy of Haji Mali Khan, "the senior Haqqani commander inside Afghanistan." He also commanded fighters in the Khost-Gardez Pass, a strategic area that links the provinces of Khost and Paktia. Khan "moved into Afghanistan from Pakistan in late 2010," ISAF stated. "During this time he led approximately 25 to 35 fighters in conducting attacks against Afghan and Coalition security forces."

Jan provided "material support" for the June 28 suicide assault on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul that killed 12 people. The heavily armed suicide assault team penetrated security at the hotel and went room to room in an attempt to kill foreigners. ISAF helicopter teams were called in to kill members of the team who were sniping from the rooftop.

ISAF said that the Intercontinental attack was carried out "in conjunction with Taliban operatives," confirming a report by The Long War Journal that the attack was indeed carried out by the Kabul Attack Network.

The Kabul Attack Network is made up of fighters from the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, and cooperates with terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaeda. It pools the resources of these groups to conduct attacks in and around the Afghan capital. Top Afghan intelligence officials have linked the Kabul Attack Network to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI] directorate as well.

The network's tentacles extend outward from Kabul into the surrounding provinces of Logar, Wardak, Nangarhar, Kapisa, Ghazni, and Zabul, a US intelligence official told the Long War Journal.

The Kabul Attack Network is led by Dawood (or Daud) and Taj Mir Jawad, military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. Dawood is the Taliban's shadow governor for Kabul, while Taj Mir Jawad is a top commander in the Haqqani Network.

Background on the Haqqani Network

The Haqqani Network operates primarily in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika, and also has an extensive presence in Kabul, Logar, Wardak, Ghazni, Zabul, Kandahar, and Kunduz.

The terror group has close links with al Qaeda and the Taliban, and its relationship with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) has allowed the network to survive and thrive in its fortress stronghold of North Waziristan, a tribal agency in Pakistan. The Haqqani Network has also extended its presence into the tribal agency of Kurram.
[...]
(See LWJ report Pakistan's Jihad and Threat Matrix report Pakistan backs Afghan Taliban for additional information on the ISI's complicity in attacks in Afghanistan and the region.)
[...]

Visit LWJ website for rest of the report and its source links.

Egypt's nervous central bank currency traders waiting on next week's news

June 30:

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Egyptian pound moved within reach of a 6-year low after violent protests rocked central Cairo on Wednesday and following a government decision last week not to borrow $3 million in credit offered by the IMF.

The pound traded as low as 5.9705 to the dollar, approaching the six-year low of 5.9765 it reached briefly on March 30 and traders say 5.97 is an important resistance level that if substantially breached could send the pound much lower.

Some of the pound's weakness "was related to Wednesday's events in Tahrir Square," one currency trader says.

The violence may delay the return of tourists, an important pillar of foreign exchange earnings, in the wake of the Egyptian popular uprising earlier this year.

"The market had also been expecting an inflow of dollars from the IMF agreement, so the announcement it was cancelled contributed to the downside," he added.

A currency analyst outside of Egypt said the purchase of dollars at the close of the 2010/11 fiscal year, which ends on June 30, has also put pressure on the pound.

Traders say the central bank, which they say supports the pound indirectly through several local banks, is loath to allow the pound to fall below the 5.97 resistance level, but may have to rethink its stance if Egypt's foreign reserves turn out of have fallen substantially when end-June figures are released next week.

Kabul Attack Network is prime suspect in InterContinental Holel attack

This is still such a fast-moving story it can't be established at this time with any certainty which group carried out the attack but Long War Journal's June 28 discussion provides the best guess at this time as to the identity of the perpetrators' gang. See the LWJ website for source links in the report:

[...] Today's suicide attack was likely carried out by the Kabul Attack Network, which is made up of fighters from the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, and cooperates with terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaeda.

Top Afghan intelligence officials have linked the Kabul Attack Network to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate as well. The network's tentacles extend outward from Kabul into the surrounding provinces of Logar, Wardak, Nangarhar, Kapisa, Ghazni, and Zabul, a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal.

The Kabul Attack Network is led by Dawood (or Daud) and Taj Mir Jawad, military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. Dawood is the Taliban's shadow governor for Kabul, while Taj Mir Jawad is a top commander in the Haqqani Network.

The Taliban have prioritized attacks against hotels in Kabul. In February, a suicide bomber detonated at the Safi Landmark. And in January 2008, a suicide assault team carried out an attack similar to today's at the Serena Hotel. Foreigners were the targets of both strikes.

Today's attack is the second major strike in Kabul this month. On June 18, a heavily armed three-man-strong suicide assault team dressed in military uniforms attacked a police station in the 1st district in Kabul, near the Finance Ministry. Nine people were killed in the attack.

The Taliban have carried out two other major suicide attacks in the capital since the beginning of April. On May 21, a suicide bomber detonated his vest at a hospital that is used to treat Afghan soldiers. Six people were killed in the blast. And on April 2, a suicide assault team attempted to storm Camp Phoenix, a NATO base. The suicide bombers were defeated by US troops guarding the perimeter.

Current death toll from attack on Kabul InterContinental Hotel

From AFP via Australia's ABC News website:

Hotel raid death toll rises
Posted 22 minutes ago

The death toll from yesterday's Taliban assault on a Kabul hotel has risen, with authorities saying 21 people, including the nine attackers, were killed.

Heavily armed Taliban militants stormed the Intercontinental Hotel, sparking a ferocious battle involving Afghan commandos, New Zealand special forces and a NATO helicopter gunship.

Officials said all of the gunmen were killed during the night-time raid on the hilltop hotel, which is frequented by Westerners and Afghan officials.

The state-owned 1960s hotel, which is not part of the global InterContinental chain, was hosting delegates attending an Afghan security conference and a large wedding party when the insurgents struck.

The interior ministry said nine Afghan civilians - mostly hotel workers - and two police officers were killed in the brazen assault and another 18 people were wounded. It said a ninth dead Taliban militant had been identified.

The ministry and the government in Madrid said a Spanish man - reportedly a pilot working for a Turkish airline - was also killed at the hotel.

Interior ministry spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi said the slain hotel workers had been on the first floor and in the lobby at the time of the attack.

Among those staying at the hotel were provincial government officials who were in Kabul for a conference on the handover of power from foreign to Afghan security forces. The process starts next month.
[...]
The attackers steered clear of the normally heavily guarded road snaking up to the hotel, instead picking their way through the trees on the northern slope towards the building around 11:00 pm on Tuesday, police said.

Panicked guests were told to stay in their rooms as the attackers, thought to have suicide vests, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, roamed through the building for about four hours before the raid was quelled.

Major Tim James, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said ISAF deployed one helicopter at the request of Afghan authorities which circled the hotel, opening fire on a number of insurgents wearing suicide vests.

"We've had reports that there were a number of explosions caused either by the insurgents detonating themselves or the engagement by the helicopter causing that (suicide vests) to explode," he said.

Witnesses identified the NATO aircraft as an Apache attack helicopter.
[...]

AP Report: Security in N. Afghanistan has fallen apart

The report by AP correspondent Kathy Gannon was posted yesterday via the Miami Herald. A must read for those who haven't been keeping up with events in the north of the country.

Attack on Kabul InterContinental not an example of swarm tactic but this is a good time to review John Arquilla's advice on countering swarms

Illustration: Oliver Munday and Ramell Ross for Arquilla's New York Times piece on swarm/counter-swarm tactics

When I'd first posted about the attack on the InterContinental Hotel, which was while it was still in progress, I'd written that it seemed to be a 'swarm' attack, of the kind launched against Mumbai in 2008. When I read B. Raman's analysis today on the attack I realized I'd been wrong to view it as a swarm tactic because even though it had touched off chaos in Kabul it was lodged against only one site. This realization decided me to review John Arquilla's description of the swarm, which he gave in a February 2009 op-ed for the New York Times (The Coming Swarm):

With three Afghan government ministries in Kabul hit by simultaneous suicide attacks this week, by a total of just eight terrorists, it seems that a new “Mumbai model” of swarming, smaller-scale terrorist violence is emerging.

The basic concept is that hitting several targets at once, even with just a few fighters at each site, can cause fits for elite counterterrorist forces that are often manpower-heavy, far away and organized to deal with only one crisis at a time. This approach certainly worked in Mumbai, India, last November, where five two-man teams of Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives held the city hostage for two days, killing 179 people. The Indian security forces, many of which had to be flown in from New Delhi, simply had little ability to strike back at more than one site at a time.

While it’s true that the assaults in Kabul seem to be echoes of Mumbai, the fact is that Al Qaeda and its affiliates have been using these sorts of swarm tactics for several years. Jemaah Islamiyah — the group responsible for the Bali nightclub attack that killed 202 people in 2002 — mounted simultaneous attacks on 16 Christian churches in Indonesia on Christmas Eve in 2000, befuddling security forces.

Even 9/11 itself had swarm-like characteristics, as four small teams of Qaeda operatives simultaneously seized commercial aircraft and turned them into missiles, flummoxing all our defensive responses. In the years since, Al Qaeda has coordinated swarm attacks in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen and elsewhere. And at the height of the insurgency in Iraq, terrorists repeatedly used swarms on targets as small as truck convoys and as large as whole cities.[...]

Raman's analysis underscores Arquilla's definition of the term and shows the limits of likening the attack on the InterContinental to the ones in Mumbai:

[...]6. The attack resembled the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, which involved, inter alia, attacks on two hotels, in two respects and differed in two other respects. The resemblances were regarding the selection of a hotel frequented by foreigners as a target and the use of a mix of modus operandi involving the use of explosive devices and hand-held weapons.

7. The important differences were that it was not a swarm tactics involving well orchestrated attacks on multiple targets located at different places by multiple teams of terrorists thereby forcing the security forces to scatter their resources. It was a single target attack by a single team of terrorists. Moreover, whereas in Mumbai there was a conscious attempt to take hostages in order to prolong the exchange of fire with the security forces, there was no such attempt in the Kabul attack.[...]

Raman's description of the circumstances of the death of a Spanish civilian in the hotel leaves unresolved at this point whether there had been hostage-taking:

10. [...] One of the attackers took shelter in a room. After an exchange of fire with the security forces, he blew himself up. As he did so, two policemen and a Spanish guest of the hotel, a commercial pilot, were killed.[...]

If the guest was in the room where the terrorist had taken refuge, that might represent hostage-taking.

I'll note here one other observation from Raman's analysis:

A part of the hotel was undergoing renovation involving employment of labour. Police suspect that the terrorists might have taken advantage of this to circumvent access control and gain access to the hotel.

That could suggest the attack was more a crime of opportunity than one designed with a specific date, event or hotel clientele in mind.

As to the most effective counter-swarm tactics, Arquilla, who teaches at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and is a proponent of replacing (or at least supplementing) the hierarchical U.S. military structure with a 'networked' one, advised in the same writing for the NYT:

[...] So how are swarms to be countered? The simplest way is to create many more units able to respond to simultaneous, small-scale attacks and spread them around the country. This means jettisoning the idea of overwhelming force in favor of small units that are not “elite” but rather “good enough” to tangle with terrorist teams. In dealing with swarms, economizing on force is essential.

We’ve actually had a good test case in Iraq over the past two years. Instead of responding to insurgent attacks by sending out large numbers of troops from distant operating bases, the military strategy is now based on hundreds of smaller outposts in which 40 or 50 American troops are permanently stationed and prepared to act swiftly against attackers. Indeed, their very presence in Iraqi communities is a big deterrent. It’s small surprise that overall violence across Iraq has dropped by about 80 percent in that period.

For the defense of American cities against terrorist swarms, the key would be to use local police officers as the first line of defense instead of relying on the military. The first step would be to create lots of small counterterrorism posts throughout urban areas instead of keeping police officers in large, centralized precinct houses. This is consistent with existing notions of community-based policing, and could even include an element of outreach to residents similar to that undertaken in the Sunni areas of Iraq — even if it were to mean taking the paradoxical turn of negotiating with gangs about security.

At the federal level, we should stop thinking in terms of moving thousands of troops across the country and instead distribute small response units far more widely. Cities, states and Washington should work out clear rules in advance for using military forces in a counterterrorist role, to avoid any bickering or delay during a crisis. Reserve and National Guard units should train and field many more units able to take on small teams of terrorist gunmen and bombers. Think of them as latter-day Minutemen.

Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey and Yemen all responded to Qaeda attacks with similar “packetizing” initiatives involving the police and armed forces; and while that hasn’t eliminated swarm attacks, the terrorists have been far less effective and many lives have been saved.

As for Afghanistan, where the swarm has just arrived, there is still time to realize the merits of forming lots of small units and sprinkling them about in a countrywide network of outposts. As President Obama looks to send more troops to that war, let’s make sure the Pentagon does it the right way.

Yes, the swarm will be heading our way, too. We need to get smaller, closer and quicker. The sooner the better.

New Zealand special forces played key role in securing InterContinental Hotel in Kabul

Report from New Zealand's 'Stuff' website with combined AP and Reuters reports:

Kiwi Troops wounded in Kabul attack
Last updated 19:32 29/06/2011

Prime Minister John Key says two New Zealand soldiers who were injured during an attack that killed at least 10 Afghan civilians at a Kabul hotel played a “crucial part” in making the building safe.

Suicide bombers and heavily armed Taleban insurgents attacked the Intercontinental Hotel frequented by westerners in the Afghan capital about 10.30pm, local time.

The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) this evening confirmed New Zealand special operations forces, in support of the Afghan Police Crisis Response Unit, responded to the incident.

Key said a handful of Kiwi troops were initially at the scene in a mentoring role, but engaged when there was a sudden escalation.

The NZDF said throughout the operation, New Zealand soldiers faced small arms fire and explosions and an ISAF helicopter with a sniper team was utilised to confront the insurgents on the roof of the hotel.

Two soldiers received moderate injuries after taking an active role in the incident in making the building safe, Key said.

The soldiers’ families have since been notified.

Key, who this morning denied any Kiwi involvement, this evening said he was not aware of the incident earlier.

Ministers in New Zealand had been informed at 3.30pm and Key was told later.

Since the team had gone into the area in a mentoring capacity, the prime minister’s office was not informed, he said.

“Sometimes in these instances, the situation changes.”

The NZDF said at 3am local time, a fire started on the fifth floor of the Intercontinental Hotel, most likely as a result of explosives set off by insurgents.

By 6.30am, clearance of the hotel was completed with a number of insurgents killed.

HOTEL TARGETED BY SIX SUICIDE BOMBERS

"At least 10 civilians, including hotel staff, were killed when six suicide bombers attacked the Intercontinental," Mohammad Zahir, the head of the Kabul police crime unit, said.

Afghan officials said all the attackers appeared to have been killed. Associated Press reporters on the scene saw at least five bodies removed from the hotel, but could not say whether they were the attackers or their victims.

The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Jason Waggoner, a spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting in Afghanistan, said the helicopters fired on the roof where militants had taken up positions. He said they killed three gunmen and that Afghan security forces clearing the Inter-Continental hotel worked their way up to the roof and engaged the remaining insurgents.

The helicopters attacked after four massive explosions rocked the hotel.

After the gunmen were killed, the hotel lights that had been blacked out during the attack came back on. Afghan security vehicles and ambulances were removing the dead and wounded from the area.

UP TO 70 GUESTS IN HOTEL

Some Afghan provincial governors were staying at the hotel, which is frequented by Afghan officials and foreign visitors.

Samoonyar Mohammad Zaman, a security officer for the Ministry of Interior, said there were 60 to 70 guests at the hotel at the time of the attack.

"I saw the bodies of two suicide bombers at the main entrance of the hotel," he said.

He said some of the provincial governors who were staying at the hotel had left. But some members of their entourages have remained inside.

"There have been some people who have escaped, but most of the guests are still inside," he said.

Zaman said the insurgents were armed with machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades. The were using grenade launchers, he said.

Afghan national security forces moved inside the blacked out hotel slowly as to not frighten or hurt any guests, he said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said all the suicide bombers either blew themselves up or were killed while other gunmen continued to fire from the roof for a while.

"There are foreign and Afghan guests staying at the hotel," Sediqqi said before the Nato helicopters attacked. "We have reports that they are safe in their rooms, but still there is shooting."

Associated Press reporters at the scene said the two sides fought with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. They saw tracer rounds go up over the darkened hotel and saw shooting from the roof of the five-story building in the rare, night time attack in the Afghan capital.

Police ordered bystanders to lie on the ground for safety.

WE HAVE KILLED AND WOUNDED 50 ENEMIES, TALEBAN CLAIMED

Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to the AP.

Mujahid later issued a statement claiming that Taleban attackers killed guards at a gate and entered the hotel.

"One of our fighters called on a mobile phone and said: 'We have gotten onto all the hotel floors and the attack is going according to the plan. We have killed and wounded 50 foreign and local enemies. We are in the corridors of the hotel now taking guests out of their rooms - mostly foreigners. We broke down the doors and took them out one by one.'"

The Taleban often exaggerate casualties from their attacks. The statement did not disclose the number of attackers, but only said one suicide bomber had died.

A few hours into the clashes, an Afghan National Army commando unit arrived at the scene.

Initially, the US-led military coalition said the Afghan Ministry of Interior had not requested any assistance from foreign forces. But later, the Nato helicopters arrived on the scene at the hotel on a hill overlooking the capital.

A guest who was inside said he heard gunfire echoing throughout the heavily guarded building. The hotel sits on a hill overlooking the city and streets leading up to it were blocked. The scene was dark as electricity at the hotel and the surrounding area was out.

Azizullah, an Afghan police officer who uses only one name, told an Associated Press reporter at the scene that at least one bomber entered the hotel and detonated a vest of explosives. Another police officer, who would not disclose his name, said there were at least two suicide bombers.

Jawid, a guest at the hotel, said he jumped out a one-story window to flee the shooting.

"I was running with my family," he said. "There was shooting. The restaurant was full with guests."

ATTACK FOLLOWED PEACE TALKS

Earlier, officials from the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan met in the capital to discuss prospects for making peace with Taleban insurgents to end the nearly decade-long war.

"The fact that we are discussing reconciliation in great detail is success and progress, but challenges remain and we are reminded of that on an almost daily basis by violence," Jawed Ludin, Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister, said at a news conference. "The important thing is that we act and that we act urgently and try to do what we can to put an end to violence."

The attack occurred nearly a week after President Barack Obama announced he was withdrawing 33,000 US troops from Afghanistan and would end the American combat role by the end of 2014.

It took place the day before a conference was scheduled in Kabul to discuss plans for Afghan security forces to take the lead for securing an increasing number of areas of the country between now and 2014 when international forces are expected to move out of combat roles. Afghans across the country were in the city to attend, although it's not known if any where staying at the Inter-Continental.

The Inter-Continental - known widely as the "Inter-Con" opened in the late 1960s, was the nation's first international luxury hotel. It has at least 200 rooms and was once part of an international chain. But when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the hotel was left to fend for itself.

It was used by Western journalists during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

On November 23, 2003, a rocket exploded nearby, shattering windows but causing no casualties.

Twenty-two rockets hit the Inter-Con between 1992 and 1996, when factional fighting convulsed Kabul under the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani. All the windows were broken, water mains were damaged and the outside structure pockmarked. Some, but not all, of the damage was repaired during Taleban rule.

ATTACKS INCREASING

Attacks in the Afghan capital have been relatively rare, although violence has increased since the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden in a US raid in Pakistan and the start of the Taleban's annual spring offensive.

On June 18, insurgents wearing Afghan army uniforms stormed a police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on officers, killing nine.

Late last month, a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police uniform infiltrated the main Afghan military hospital, killing six medical students. A month before that, a suicide attacker in an army uniform sneaked past security at the Afghan Defence Ministry, killing three people.

Other hotels in the capital have also been targeted.

In January 2008, militants stormed Kabul's most popular luxury hotel, the Serena, hunting down Westerners who cowered in a gym during a coordinated assault that killed eight people. An American, a Norwegian journalist and a Philippine woman were among the dead.

A suicide car bomber in December 2009, struck near the home of a former Afghan vice president and a hotel frequented by Westerners, killing eight people and wounding nearly 40 in a neighbourhood considered one of Kabul's safest.

And in February 2010, insurgents struck two residential hotels in the heart of Kabul, killing 20 people including seven Indians, a French filmmaker and an Italian diplomat.

- Stuff, with AP and Reuters

Taliban claim attack on InterContinental Hotel in Kabul (UPDATED 6X)

UPDATE 5:00 PM EDT, June 29
Posted about a half hour ago AFP's report on the current death toll from the attack. Adds information that attackers avoided the road to the hotel compound and approached it by climbing wooded hillside.

This is the last update for this post; any other information I'll be passing along I'll place in a new post.

UPDATE 3:49 PM EDT, June 29
When I'd first posted about the attack on the InterContinental Hotel, which was while it was still in progress (see first entry below), I'd written that it seemed to be a 'swarm' attack. I was incorrect, but a discussion about the swarm tactic led me to review John Arquilla's advice on developing counter-swarm tactics, which I did in this Pundita post this afternoon, and which also quotes from B. Raman's informative analysis of the attack on the InterContinental.

And earlier today I posted a report from a New Zealand news site about the important role that New Zealand special forces played in securing the hotel. I found the report very interesting.

UPDATE 8:50 PM EDT
I'm not sure the reason cited in the Bloomberg report for the attack is the only one because reportedly there were high-value Afghan targets -- governors -- staying at the hotel ahead of the next day's conference. But here's the Bloomberg report, which contains details not mentioned in other reports I've included in the updates.

This will be my last update for the night.

Taliban Raid on Kabul Hotel Misses Targeted U.S. Diplomats

by Eltaf Najafizada in Kabul and Flavia Krause-Jackson in Washington
June 28, 2011, 7:45 PM EDT
Bloomberg wire service

Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers stormed the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, seeking to find and kill visiting American and Pakistani diplomats.

No U.S. diplomats were caught in the attack, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in an e-mailed statement. The U.S. government had no immediate information about private American citizens, she said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama was briefed on the attack as he returned to Washington from an event in Iowa.

The attack began at 10 p.m. yesterday and gunfire continued at the darkened hotel five hours later, as Afghan army units clashed with the Taliban gunmen. Two NATO helicopters killed three gunmen on the roof, the Associated Press reported, citing coalition spokesman Jason Waggoner.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said four suicide bombers either blew themselves up or were killed in the fighting, according to the AP.

Zabihullah Mujahed, a spokesman for the Taliban movement, said a “big group” of Taliban gunmen killed or wounded 50 people, mostly foreigners, at the landmark hotel in the capital. The attack was timed for a meeting of U.S., Afghan and Pakistani officials with the intent of killing them, he said.

One bomber blew himself up at the start of the raid and a guard at the entrance of the hotel was killed, Mujahed said in a telephone interview. Once inside, the gunmen dispersed inside the hotel to seek foreigners on different floors, he said.

A U.S. delegation led by Ambassador Marc Grossman, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, had left Kabul earlier and was en route to Washington during the attack, Nuland said.

“The United States strongly condemns the attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, which once again demonstrates the terrorists’ complete disregard for human life,” Nuland said.

UPDATE 6:45 PM EDT
Wolf Blitzer reports on CNN TV at around 6:33 PM EDT (3:33 PM Kabul time) on Reuters report that NATO helicopters have just fired on and killed 3 terrorists on the hotel roof.

> Foreign jornalist Erin Cunningham on Skype to Wolf Blitzer CNN 3:30 AM Kabul -- she told Wolf:
> Right now, helicopters arriving to shoot at terrorists on hotel roof. [These must be the NATO
> She is now back at her home but about 15 minutes before she first spoke with Wolf she recounted that she and another reporter were standing about 500 meters from the hotel (as close as police would allow onlookers) and they were nearly knocked off their feet by three large explosions; the police didn't know the source of the explosions.
> Barbara Starr CNN Pentagon reporter - 6:36 PM EDT:
ISAF spokesperson confirms just now that 2 NATO helicopters did fire on terrorists on roof, killing an estimated 3 of them.
> Hotel, located on a hilltop, is 9 miles from Kabul international airport, about 2 miles from city center. Hotel has 5 stories, 300 rooms.

From FNC live report around 6:00 PM EDT from their Pentagon reporter Jennifer Griffin:
> Unconfirmed reports that there have been hostages taken in the hotel
> All State dept. personnel accounted for but State can't say whether there are any Americans in the hotel.
> Kabul police and/or commandos did not intially request help from ISAF.
**************
In these updates I'm simply passing along entire reports from different news agencies because each report has different details. Still a fog of war situation at the hotel but I do have one question. An Afghan police official says in the CNN report that they've had no contact with people in the hotel because the phone lines are down. Blackberry, anyone?

Bombers attack luxury hotel in Kabul
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 28, 2011 -- Updated 2125 GMT (0525 HKT)

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Fighters armed with bombs and small arms attacked Kabul's InterContinental Hotel, where they fought Tuesday with Afghan security forces, Chief of Criminal Investigation Mohammed Zahir told CNN.

Suicide bombers were among the attackers, he said.

Taliban bombers were responsible for the 10 p.m. attack on the hotel, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said.

The hotel is popular among international guests.

Initial reports indicate that multiple suicide bombers, mostly likely wearing explosive vests, carried out the attack, a U.S. military official told CNN. There were no indications that U.S. military or diplomatic personnel were at the hotel, the official said.

Police Chief Lt. Gen. Ayoub Salangi said Kabul police were on the grounds of the hotel, but had not been able to communicate with anyone inside, since the phone lines were down. He could not confirm any casualties.

A news conference had been scheduled to take place Wednesday in the hotel to discuss the planned transition of security from international to Afghan forces announced last week by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The hotel is on a hill on the outskirts of Kabul and is typically protected by heavy security. Three Taliban penetrated that security, and one of them detonated an explosion on the second floor, said Erin Cunningham, a journalist in Kabul for The National.

"We're continuing to hear small-arms fire right now," she told CNN from a vantage about 500 meters (a third of a mile) from the hotel. Several snipers were on the roof firing at Afghan security forces.

A few minutes beforehand, she said, rocket-propelled grenades were launched from the roof of the hotel toward the area of the first vice president's house. "Everyone is pretty nervous," she said. "A lot of people are fleeing the scene."

A few moments later, she said the hotel was rocked by three explosions, one of which knocked her off her feet. U.S. forces were on the scene, she said.

Members of the Afghan National Security Forces were on the scene, but the city police had the lead, International Security Assistance Force Maj. Jason Waggoner said in a statement.

He said ISAF forces were providing "some limited assistance."

Electricity around the hotel was shut off, said Jerome Starkey, a reporter for The Times.

The hotel was developed by the InterContinental Hotels Group and opened in 1969. But it has had no association with the group since the Soviet invasion in 1979, though it continues to use the name and logo without connection to the parent company.

The incident came on the same day that Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell announced that NATO and other members of the international community involved in Afghanistan have decided to increase the number of security forces in the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police to 352,000.

The current number of Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police is about 300,000, the commander of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan and commanding general of the Combined Security Transition Command told the Atlanta Press Club.

The increased number will be sufficient to give the Afghans security without coalition forces having to do it, he said.

CNN's Reza Sayah in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tom Watkins in Atlanta, Barbara Starr and Elise Labott in Washington and journalist Jonathan Boone [for the Guardian] in Kabul contributed to this story.

UPDATE 5:35 PM EDT

Kabul Bombing: Hotel Under Attack By Suicide Bombers in Afghanistan
By NICK SCHIFRIN (@nickschifrin) reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan
ABC News [USA]
June 28, 2011

In one of the most significant attacks in Afghanistan in the past few years, insurgents have hit a landmark Kabul hotel where Afghan officials had gathered for a conference with as many as 6 suicide bombers and gunmen, according to police.

At least one suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the Intercontinental Hotel, and the attack is still ongoing. At least four explosions have been heard and gunfire continues. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack.

A police official says there are at least 3 attackers, but the number could be double that. An Afghan news agency is reporting that at least 10 people have died, but that figure has not been independently confirmed.

Afghan officials, including provincial governors, were staying at the Intercontinental because of a conference on transition that begins tomorrow. Afghan forces are scheduled to take charge of security in some areas of the country starting in July.

According to a State Dept. official, no American officials have been affected by the attack. It's not yet known if any other Americans have been killed or injured.

It's not known if there was a particular target staying at the hotel, which sits on a hill above the city, or if the target was the hotel itself. The attack occurred while guests were having dinner and power to the hotel and the entire surrounding neighborhood has now been cut. Police have cordoned off streets leading to the hotel. The U.S.-led international military force in Afghanistan says it has offered assistance to Afghan authorities.

The Intercontinental Hotel is the most famous hotel in Afghanistan and one of the icons of Kabul, where many Westerners and Afghan officials stay and hold meetings.

UPDATE 5:20 PM EDT

Afghanistan: Kabul's Intercontinental hotel attacked by Taliban militants
By Jon Boone in Kabul
The Guardian
Tuesday 28 June 2011 21.15 BST [British Summer Time 5 hours ahead of EDT]

Taliban militants with at least one suicide bomb attack popular Kabul hotel, with Afghan police reportedly locked in gun battles

A famous hotel in Kabul is under attack from a commando squad of Taliban militants armed with small arms, at least one suicide bomb and rocket propelled grenades.

The assault on the old Intercontinental, which is popular with Afghan politicians and foreign visitors, began late on Tuesday night when it is thought at least two receptions were taking place.

Although details about the ongoing assault are still unclear, a Taliban spokesman, contacted on the phone by journalists, was quick to claim credit for the assault.

A Kabul police chief, Mohammad Zahir, said the assault involved "several gunmen shooting", and that a "number" of police had been wounded.

According to a tweet by Bette Dam, a Dutch journalist at the scene, the attackers also appeared to be armed with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Dam reported seeing at least four RPGs being launched from the hotel into the nearby house belonging to Mohammad Qasim Fahim, one of Afghanistan's vice-presidents.

Reuters reported that a wedding party was in progress at the 1960s hotel, which is no longer part of the Intercontinental chain, at the time of the assault.

The attack on such a well-defended hotel, which is impossible to approach without going through at least two security checkpoints, is embarrassing for the Afghan government as it prepares to take responsibility for security in Kabul province, as part of much-vaunted "transition" strategy. Afghan authorities have already been nominally in charge of the capital city for some time.

Attacks in Kabul have been relatively rare, although violence has increased since the 2 May killing of Osama bin Laden in a US raid in Pakistan, and since the start of the Taliban's annual spring offensive.

On 18 June, insurgents wearing Afghan army uniforms stormed a police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on officers, killing nine.

**********

This seems to be a 'swarm' attack, of the kind launched against two major hotels in the seige of Mumbai in 2008 that also had a large foreign clientele. A Taliban spokesman claims that the attackers are going by floor by floor and room by in the hotel. No time stamp on the New York Times report, which appeared on Google News about a half hour ago; in any case the situation was unresolved at the time the report was filed. I'll try to see what I can find by way of updates to the situation:

Group of Attackers Storms Hotel in Afghan Capital
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: June 28, 2011
The New York Times

KABUL — Several attackers stormed the Intercontinental Hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Tuesday night, and witnesses said shooting and a loud explosion were heard as Afghan security forces rushed to the scene. Afghan security forces were still struggling to bring the situation under control, and the number of casualties was not immediately clear. But a Western security official said that early reports indicated that there were as many as six attackers — armed and believed to be wearing suicide vests — and that 10 people had been killed in the attack.

A police general, Mohammed Zahir, head of the Criminal Investigation Department, said at least three suicide bombers armed with light and heavy weapons had entered the Intercontinental Hotel.

“All the Afghan forces are near and around the hotel and the fighting is still going on and we are trying to kill them,” he said.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack saying they were targeting foreigners and Afghans, Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman for the north and east, said in a statement.

“Our muj entered the hotel,” he said, referring to Taliban fighters, “and they’ve gone through several stories of the building and they are breaking into each room and they are targeting the 300 Afghans and foreigners who are staying.”

His claims could not be immediately confirmed.

The attack appeared to be in the style of previous assaults carried out by armed men in suicide vests in Afghanistan in recent years by the Taliban and its allies in the Haqqani network, a militant group based in Pakistan.

In October 2009 several suicide bombers and gunmen stormed a United Nations guest house in Kabul. By the end of the siege, at least five United Nations employees, two Afghan security officials and the brother-in-law of a prominent Afghan politician were dead, along with three attackers.

Similarly, in the summer of 2010 in the northern city of Kunduz six suicide bombers entered a guest house used by Development Alternatives Inc., a global development company under contract to the United States Agency for International Development. Four people were killed in that attack.

In January 2008 a suicide bombing at the Serena Hotel in Kabul killed at least six people.

On Pakistan, “Something’s got to give, something’s got to change.” (EDITED 1X)

UPDATE 6:20 PM EDT
In the first version of this post I commented that there were no surprises in Gen. Allen's confirmation testimony. According to a Fox News TV report a few minutes ago, Allen did drop a bombshell during the hearing by saying (or indicating) that the Pentagon didn't include the number that Obama decided on as within the range of troop drawdown options that the Pentagon had provided the White House. Previously I think everyone had assumed that the Pentagon had included the number in the range of options they provided the White House as part of their recommendations.

I'm looking for information to verify the Fox statement but in the meantime I've yanked my comment as well as my praise for the Washington Post journalist whose report I quote in this post because if Allen did indeed make such an explicit statement or even srong indication, it didn't show in the report -- even though the reporter quotes Allen as saying that Obama’s decision to withdraw 10,000 troops by December and 23,000 more troops by September “was a bit more aggressive than we anticipated.”

That's not quite as saying that Obama chose a number that wasn't within the Pentagon's range of recommendations. Fox might have simply read that inference into Allen's statement, however.
**************
Note that powerful senators on both sides of the political aisle are in lockstep when it comes to the need for the U.S. to alter its approach to Pakistan.

See the Washington Post website for source links provided in the report:

Posted at 12:11 PM ET, 06/28/2011
Lt. Gen. John Allen falls in line on Afghanistan
By Craig Whitlock
for Washington Checkpoint (reporting on diplomacy, intelligence and military affairs)
The Washington Post

Lt. Gen. John R. Allen may be a Marine, but he also showed Tuesday that he knows how to be a good soldier, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that he supports President Obama’s plan to draw down forces in Afghanistan.

Allen, whom Obama has nominated to become commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said he wasn’t involved in the deliberations over how many troops to pull out from Afghanistan. But he echoed other military commanders in saying that Obama’s decision to withdraw 10,000 troops by December and 23,000 more troops by September “was a bit more aggressive than we anticipated.”

At the same time, Allen said Obama’s timetable to wind down the war in Afghanistan sent a clear message to the government of President Hamid Karzai that it needs to assert itself and take more direct responsibility for fighting the Taliban.

“It sends a message of urgency to the Afghans that they must begin to take ownership of their security themselves,” Allen said.

Allen’s testimony came as the Senate panel considered a triple play of military nominations. In addition to Allen’s promotion to full general and the top commander in Afghanistan, the committee deliberated on the nomination of Vice Adm. William H. McRaven to become commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command and Army Gen. James D. Thurman to become commander of U.S. forces in Korea.

Confirmation appeared to be a foregone conclusion in each case as effusive senators praised the patriotism and bravery of the nominees. The toughest questions for McRaven, the current head of the Joint Special Operations Command and the military official who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, concerned whether he thought he’d have enough forces and support to keep pursuing insurgent leaders in Afghanistan.

Allen had the more awkward task of persuading senators that he backed Obama’s troop drawdown plan even though it was an open secret that the Pentagon wanted the commander in chief to keep more forces in Afghanistan for a longer duration.

“This decision by the president can be accounted for in the current strategy,” Allen said, a bit delicately.

The former deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command, Allen also fielded skeptical questions about whether the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan could succeed regardless of how many U.S. forces stick around.

“I have for you a more fundamental question,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “Is there any number of troops that can ensure a stable Afghanistan?”

She cited the existence of havens for insurgents in Pakistan and the lack of a functional government in Kabul “that is not plagued by corruption.”

Allen acknowledged that “there are challenges, significant challenges” but said those obstacles were not insurmountable.

McRaven was more forthright about the U.S. government’s inability to persuade Pakistan to eliminate havens for insurgents fighting in Afghanistan. Asked why Pakistan hadn’t cracked down on the Haqqani network, which is based in North Waziristan, McRaven said it was “both a capacity issue and potentially a willingness issue,” and added, “I don’t think it is likely to change” in the near term.

That assessment didn’t improve the mood of some senators, already irritated by what they view as a lack of support from Pakistan.

“Something’s got to give, something’s got to change,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-.S.C.) pressed the point on whether Pakistan was a reliable partner by asking McRaven if Pakistan had acted on U.S. requests to find Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s spiritual leader, or to close down bomb factories operating on its territory.

McRaven acknowledged that U.S. officials had asked their Pakistani counterparts for help on both counts, but didn’t have much to show for it.

“I’m with Chairman Levin on this,” Graham said, citing a growing frustration with Pakistan. “This has got to stop.”

Levin said the committee would try to hold a confirmation vote for Allen and the others this week. Administration officials want to speed up plans to change commanders in Afghanistan so that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the current commander, has a bit of a breather before starting his new job, as expected, as director of the CIA.

Karzai surrounding himself with anti-US advisors as he realizes US military pullout from Afghanistan in 2014 will be total

June 23, 2011:

Karzai surrounding himself with anti-US advisers
By Kathy Gannon
Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan – President Hamid Karzai is increasingly isolated and has surrounded himself with an inner circle of advisers who are urging him to move closer to Iran and Pakistan as the U.S. draws down its role in Afghanistan, several friends and aides tell The Associated Press.

Their advice is echoed in Karzai's anti-West rhetoric, which has heightened both in his public speeches and in private. He met recently with Iran's defense minister, and constantly cautions against trusting the U.S. to have Afghanistan's best interests at heart.
[...]
"A lot of Afghans are very concerned about the direction the country is taking, moving away from the international community ... toward a more conservative practice in which the religious people and warlords have more power," Human Rights of Afghanistan Commissioner Nader Nadery said.

"Consistently his aides are pushing him toward Iran and Pakistan," Nadery said. "All those who are managing and controlling his schedule, providing appointments, all see the advantages of breaking with the international community."
[...]
In part, Nadery blamed Karzai's disappointment at not getting a strategic forces agreement with the United States that would allow for U.S. bases in Afghanistan as well as give the president protection and negotiation room with Washington. Instead, the document the U.S. gave to Karzai spoke only of a complete withdrawal, he said.

The United States has said it will have all its fighting forces out of Afghanistan by 2014 and that the security of Afghanistan will be turned over to Afghan forces. The U.S. has not asked for any bases or centers to remain under its control.

"I think the reality of their complete withdrawal has struck home," Nadery said. "Now he sees they may go and they don't want a (military) presence here, there were no bases that they requested and perhaps now he is thinking, `Who will protect me?' And he has turned to Hizb-i-Islami and conservative elements in the country like those on the Ulema (clerics) Council, former warlords, as well as getting closer to Pakistan and to Iran."
[...]

See also the Guardian's June 23 report, US pullout from Afghanistan signals new power struggle in fragile nation. The highlights:

• Fears peace talks will see Taliban return to power
• Pakistan, India, Russia and China jockey for position

And if anyone's interested in more of the Obama administration's blither about Pakistan:

June 23, 2011 -(Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Pakistan on Thursday that U.S. military aid could suffer if Islamabad failed to address rising U.S. doubts over its commitment to fighting Islamist militants.

Clinton told a Senate panel that the Obama administration viewed Pakistan as a crucial partner as it seeks to wind down the U.S.-led war in neighboring Afghanistan and vanquish al Qaeda and other militant groups.

But under skeptical questioning from U.S. lawmakers, Clinton said Washington remained concerned that Pakistan's actions were sometimes not lining up with its words -- and that it could affect the billions of dollars in annual U.S. aid to Pakistan.

"When it comes to our military aid, we are not prepared to continue providing that at the pace we were providing it unless and until we see some steps taken," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

She didn't specify the steps, but stressed it was time for the United States and Pakistan -- which saw relations deeply strained after U.S. special forces raided a Pakistani compound in May to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden -- to ensure they are on the same page.

"On one side of the ledger are a lot of actions that we really disapprove of and find inimical to our values and even our interests," Clinton said.

"Then on the other side of the ledger there are actions that are very much in line with what we are seeking and want. So we're constantly balancing and weighing that."[...]

The official, declared state policy of Pakistan is that terrorism is a legitimate tool of war.

The regime has repeatedly used the tool against unarmed civilians, repeatedly used it to fight undeclared wars, and used it as a foreign policy tool. So what does it say about the United States of America that instead of declaring Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism, in the face of overwhelming evidence going back decades that it does indeed use terrorism as a tool of war, the U.S. regime blithers about values and balancing a ledger?