International

US Considers Unilateral Strike on Pak: Report

US military is considering alternative of unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event a successful terrorist attack on American soil is traced back to that country, said media reports quoting senior Pentagon officials.

Washington Post reported that plans to strike in Pakistan unilaterally got underway after connection between Times Square bomb plot suspect Faisal Shahzad and elements of Teherik-e-Taliban Pakistan was established, reports said.

“Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of the Times Square,” the Post quoted officials as saying.

However, officials said that the American retaliation was contemplated only under extreme circumstances like catastrophic attack in the US that convinces President Barack Obama that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient, said reports.

Under the plan, the US would focus on air and missile strikes and could also take use of small teams of US special forces presently deployed along the border with Pakistan, said reports.

“One of the senior military officials said plans for military strikes in Pakistan have been revised significantly over the past several years, moving away from a ‘large, punitive response’ to more measured plans meant to deliver retaliatory blows against specific militant groups,” the daily said.

US special operations team in Afghanistan has pushed for years to have wider latitude to carry out raids across the border on the ground that CIA drone attacks do not yield prisoners or other opportunities to gather intelligence.

However, protests were staged in Islamabad against drone strikes after US special forces hit targets in Pakistan in 2008.

The Post reported that a senior official had told Pakistan that it has only weeks to show a real progress to crackdown against the Taliban, reports said.

Washington is insisting on Islamabad to launch a major strike on the Haqqani network of the Taliban which is suspected to have safe havens in North Waziristan, where Pakistan Army has shown reluctance to go in.

The paper said that Islamabad has been ‘put on a clock’ to launch a new intelligence and counter-terrorist operation against the group.

The paper said that US officials have told Pakistan that Washington reserves the right to strike in the tribal areas in pursuit of world’s most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden and other high value targets like his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri and Mullah Omar.

(Based on internet reports)

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