Pakistan is al Qaeda magnet

NY Times:

American military and intelligence officials say there has been an increase in recent months in the number of foreign fighters who have traveled to Pakistan’s tribal areas to join with militants there.

The flow may reflect a change that is making Pakistan, not Iraq, the preferred destination for some Sunni extremists from the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia who are seeking to take up arms against the West, these officials say.

The American officials say the influx, which could be in the dozens but could also be higher, shows a further strengthening of the position of the forces of Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, increasingly seen as an important base of support for the Taliban, whose forces in Afghanistan have become more aggressive in their campaign against American-led troops.

According to the American officials, many of the fighters making their way to the tribal areas are Uzbeks, North Africans and Arabs from Persian Gulf states. American intelligence officials say that some jihadist Web sites have been encouraging foreign militants to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is considered a “winning fight,” compared with the insurgency in Iraq, which has suffered sharp setbacks recently.

The number of foreign fighters entering Iraq has dropped to fewer than 40 a month from as many as 110 a month a year ago, a military spokesman in Baghdad said Wednesday. “The sanctuary situation in Pakistan’s tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province is more, rather than less, troublesome than before,” Gen. David D. McKiernan, the new NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a telephone interview. “The porous border has allowed insurgent militant groups a greater freedom of movement across that border, as well as a greater freedom to resupply, to allow leadership to sustain stronger sanctuaries, and to provide fighters across that border.”

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What we are now seeing in Pakistan and Afghanistan is what we would have seen earlier if al Qaeda had not been distracted by the war in Iraq. Since they were defeated there I think their surge into Pakistan is also somewhat defensive. They know the US will be sending more troops to Afghanistan and they are trying to build up their forces to protect what is left of al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The tribal areas are al Qaeda's last sanctuary and the new Pakistan government has looked very ineffective in dealing with the religious bigot insurgency. Neither Pakistan or the US has a comprehensive strategy for defeating al Qaeda in Pakistan. It will take the kind of counterinsurgency operation that won in Iraq to defeat them and the Pakistan government just does not seem to have the will for the operation.

While many have argued that the disbanding of the Iraqi army was a mistake, one of the results was a rebuilding that could be molded into an effective fighting force. Whether Pakistan could do that now is an open question, even if they had the will.

The message the Pakistan government needs to get is that permitting the sanctuaries is not tenable. They can either help us take them out or watch, but if they try to interfere it will be a huge mistake.

What the US needs to avoid is accepting a situation where the enemy forces are allowed to operate out of Pakistan, the way the Vietnamese communist did out of Laos and Cambodia. We cannot permit the enemy to have a sanctuary anywhere in the world. The Pakistan government may need to be reminded about the Bush doctrine. They can comeback to being an ally or they may find themselves an enemy.