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28 Oct 07
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While a crackdown against the Taliban suits Pakistan’s immediate interests, it is not clear how Pakistan will be able to sever its ties completely with Kashmiri separatists.
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The additional challenge of managing sectarian groups, which continue to serve as a buffer against New Delhi and allow Islamabad to yield some influence over Kabul’s political future, may stall reform and distract Pakistan from increasing its goodwill efforts to improve relations with neighboring states to mitigate terrorism in the region.
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In both urban and rural areas of Pakistan, al-Qaeda and its supporters, the Taliban, and local militants—who call themselves the mujahidin—have proven to conceal their identities, whereabouts, and activities in densely populated cities like Karachi as well as the sleepy hillsides of Khyber. Urban centers such as Rawalpindi and Mardan have offered temporary residence to key al-Qaeda leaders, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaida.[20] And the tribal belt that includes the Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have been coined ‘safe havens’ for terrorists and religious extremists as well as offer safe passage to the Taliban to and from the Afghan-Pakistan border.[21] It is these regions of Pakistan and the presence of jihadi groups in all the three bustling metropolitan cities of Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad that some U.S. policymakers are “hinting” at the need for rule of law, free and fair elections, and a working judicial system in Pakistan.
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According to a senior Pakistani official, the answer to U.S. expectations and demands of increased Pakistani counter-terrorism cooperation is “what is the limit?” How much more Pakistan can do given its internal security threats from “extremism, obscurantism, and religious bigotry” and external challenges from neighboring countries remains to be seen.
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Disabling al-Qaeda through the country’s “capture and kill” policy includes the arrest and death of more than 700 al-Qaeda militants and dozens of Taliban activists operating inside Pakistan.[11] While this policy has permitted Pakistan to score a few successes on the war on terrorism, the President noted that “military action is never a solution. Eliminating terror networks in the long-term depended not on the military’s prowess but sustained development, education, and economic growth—all of which the government takes credit for within the past six years. According to Musharraf, “Military action against extremism and terrorism buys time for a long-term strategy to be executed, it busy time for other instruments to be used to get to the root. It is not the solution.”[12]
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By offering support, U.S. officials in New Delhi acknowledged that “Musharraf was sticking his neck out dangerously.”[5] Another senior U.S. policy analyst described the U.S.–Pakistan relationship as “alternating engagement and withdrawal,” but a retired Pakistani diplomat indicates the historic on-off U.S.–Pakistan partnership is in part due to neither country having “shared perspectives.”[6] He indicated that neither country has “continuity, a larger conceptual framework, and a shared vision” beyond issue-specific problems and solutions.[7] Observers have said that U.S.–Pakistan cooperation is tied to one core issue: the global war on terrorism.
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