US UAV attacks in Baluchistan?

Conflicting, er, views:

1) More Drone Attacks in Pakistan Planned

Despite threats of retaliation from Pakistani militants, senior administration officials said Monday that the United States intended to step up its use of drones to strike militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas and might extend them to a different sanctuary deeper inside the country.

On Sunday [April 5], a senior Taliban leader vowed to unleash two suicide attacks a week like one on Saturday in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, unless the Central Intelligence Agency stopped firing missiles at militants. Pakistani officials have expressed concerns that the missile strikes from remotely piloted aircraft fuel more violence in the country, and some American officials say they are also concerned about some aspects of the drone strikes.

But as Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special envoy to the region, arrived in Islamabad on Monday, the administration officials said the plan to intensify missile strikes underscored President Obama’s goal to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as to strike at other militant groups allied with Al Qaeda.

Officials are also proposing to broaden the missile strikes to Baluchistan, south of the tribal areas, unless Pakistan manages to reduce the incursion of militants there.

Influential American lawmakers have voiced support for the administration’s position...

In Pakistan, the extensive missile strikes have been limited to the tribal areas, and authorities say they have killed 9 of the top 20 Qaeda leaders. American officials say the missile strikes have forced some Taliban and Qaeda leaders to flee south toward Quetta, a city in the province of Baluchistan, which abuts the parts of southern Afghanistan where recent fighting has been the fiercest.

One of the prized attributes of the drones — the Cessna-size Predators and their larger and more heavily armed cousins called the Reapers — is that they can linger over an area day after day, sending back video that can be used to build a “pattern of life” analysis...

While the Air Force operates its drones from military bases in the United States, the C.I.A. controls its fleet of Predators and Reapers from its headquarters in Langley, Va.

The final preparations for strikes in Pakistan take place in a crowded room lined with video screens, where C.I.A. officers work at phone banks and National Security Agency personnel monitor electronic chatter, according to former C.I.A. officials.

The intelligence officers watch scratchy video captured by the drones, which always fly in pairs above potential targets.

According to the former officials, it is generally the head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service or his deputy who gives the final approval for a strike. The decision about what type of weapon to use depends on the target, according to one former senior intelligence official.

Top national security leaders have approved lists of people who can be attacked, officials say, and the lawyers determine whether each attack can be justified under international law.

2) No U.S. drones over Pakistan's Baluchistan: Zardari

The United States will not extend attacks on militants by pilotless drone aircraft to Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview broadcast on Thursday [April 9].

The United States and Pakistan do not see eye to eye on strategy to fight al Qaeda and Taliban militants, Pakistan said this week during a visit by senior U.S. officials, with the drone strikes a major point of dispute.

The New York Times reported last month that the United States might expand the area of its strikes from northwestern Pakistan to Baluchistan province, which borders violent southern Afghanistan.

But Zardari, speaking after this week's visit by U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that would not happen.

"In Baluchistan, they have assured us they will not be using drones," Zardari said in an interview with Dunya television.

Pakistan is crucial to U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, where a Taliban insurgency has intensified. Surging militant violence in nuclear-armed Pakistan has also raised fears about its prospects.

The United States has since last year stepped up strikes on militants in strongholds on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border by pilotless drones, mostly in the Waziristan region.

Pakistan objects to the strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty and the civilian casualties they cause enrage villagers and whip up support for the militants.

DIFFERENCES

But the United States has brushed off Pakistani complaints. U.S. commanders say eliminating militant enclaves in northwest Pakistan is vital to success in Afghanistan...

Update: Then there's the ISI issue:

In the War Against Militants, U.S. and Pakistan Remain at Odds

...Washington believes that the Pakistani army, through its premier intelligence agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is continuing to back its traditional clients in the jihadist underworld. "There are challenges associated with the ISI's support, historically, for some groups, and I think it's important that that support ends," Mullen told reporters in Islamabad on Tuesday. In its military operations, Pakistan's army has taken on al-Qaeda and militants fighting inside Pakistan but has not targeted those militants — including Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, believed to be hiding in Quetta — who attack only U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The army says it has certain priorities and cannot risk opening up another front, given its stretched resources, by attacking those groups.

The role of the ISI and these militants will feature prominently in Holbrooke and Mullen's meeting with the Pakistani leadership, says Najam Sethi, a newspaper editor and a prominent supporter of Islamabad's alliance with Washington against militancy. Pakistani politicians and analysts believe that the military establishment, in its enduring efforts to counter Indian influence in the region, is reluctant to change course until there is a Pakistan-friendly regime installed in Kabul and a resolution to the Kashmir dispute. One politician described the fear of being squeezed from both borders as "being caught in a nutcracker." (Find out why Pakistan fears encirclement by India.)