Defiant Pak refuses to go after Haqqanis

Military Brass Vow To Resist US Pressure, But Agree To De-Escalate The Situation

Islamabad: Pakistan will not take military action against the Haqqani network despite growing US pressure, even as the country’s top military commanders have agreed on the need to de-escalate the situation, according to media reports on Monday.
These decisions were made at a special meeting of the corps commanders chaired by Pakistan army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Sunday.
The commanders vowed to resist US demands for an offensive against the Haqqanis in North Waziristan but also discussed possible implications of unilateral action by the US on Pakistani territory, a military official was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune. The decision is “likely to chip away at the deteriorating relationship between the two countries”, report said.
“We have already conveyed to the US that Pakistan cannot go beyond what it has already done,” the military official said. However,the Dawn newspaper quoted its sources as saying that the meeting of the corps commanders, probably the first held on a Sunday, had agreed on the need to deescalate the situation.
The meeting held on a holiday “reflected the seriousness of the crisis” created by a series of allegations by US officials and a source said that deescalation efforts were afoot. “Escalation is harmful. In the cost-benefit analysis, there appears to be no benefit of a confrontation,” the sourcesaid. The Dawn too reported that “there was nothing to suggest that army had agreed to act against the Haqqani network under US pressure”.
There was no official word from the military on deliberations at Sunday’s six-hour meeting. Before the meeting got underway, a brief statement had said Gen Kayani had called a special meeting to “discuss the prevailing security situation”.
Tensions between the two sides have spiked since US military chief Adm Mike Mullen alleged last week that Pakistan’s ISI had backed the Haqqani network in carrying out several attacks in Afghanistan. Kayani rejected the accusation as “not based on facts”. PM Yousaf Raza Gilani on Sunday asked foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar to cut short her visit to the US and to return to Pakistan.
At the same time, the Pakistan army publicly acknowledged its contacts with the Haqqanis, apparently confirming that the security establishment has no intention to go after one of the most feared Taliban factions. PTI
Hina, Malik lash out at Washington, call Haqqanis CIA’s blue-eyed boys for years
Striking back at the US for accusing ISI of supporting the deadly Haqqani network, Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar said the terror group was CIA’s “blue-eyed boy” for many years. Responding to questions, Khar, who is in New York leading Pakistan’s delegation at the UN General Assembly, rejected US accusations against the military-run ISI, saying it has no links to the Haqqani network, accused of the recent attack on the American embassy in Kabul. “If we talk about links, I am sure the CIA also has links with many terrorist organizations around the world, by which we mean intelligence links,” she told al Jazeera news channel. “And this particular network, which (the US) continues to talk about, is a network which was the blue-eyed boy of the CIA itself for many years,” she added.
Interior minister Rehman Malik too lashed out at the US, saying “the Haqqani network was trained and produced by CIA” during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. PTI