US frustrated by Pakistan's response to militants (News Feature)

By Mike McCarthy Apr 25, 2009, 2:24 GMT

Washington - As Taliban militants edged closer this week to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, fear was palpable in Washington that the nuclear-armed country was slipping toward greater instability.

At the same time, US officials voiced frustration that the Pakistani government was not acting strongly to confront the militants and that by cutting deals with the Taliban, Islamabad was only emboldening an extremist agenda.

The Obama administration closely links the rising strength of the Taliban with the conflict in Afghanistan, which US officials believe is jeopardized by the Taliban's ability to launch crossborder raids against US, NATO and Afghan forces.

'These elements are a threat to not only Pakistan's internal security but to its neighbors,' State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood said Friday. 'And I'm focusing specifically on Afghanistan.'

A major crisis in Pakistan appeared imminent this week, when the Taliban took control of a Swat Valley district that lies about 100 kilometres north of Islamabad in the Northwest Frontier Province, a rugged, mountainous area where the Pakistani government exercises little authority.

The Taliban overran the Buner district after Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani approved a deal with the Taliban that allows the introduction of strict Islamic laws in nearly one-third of the Northwest Frontier Province, in return for an end to the months- long insurgency.

US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the special envoy for the Afghan-Pakistan conflict, Richard Holbrooke, held a meeting at the White House to discuss the developments.

The Taliban began pulling out of Buner on Friday, after the government threatened to scrap the deal and resume its military campaign. Washington has pointed out that past deals have failed, and US Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton said this week that the militants remain undeterred in their goal of toppling Pakistan's democratic government.

'We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances now within hours of Islamabad that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists,' Clinton told the House Foreign Relations Committee.

Clinton called on Pakistani intellectuals in the United States 'to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents, to the Taliban, to al-Qaeda, to the allies that are in this terrorist syndicate.'

'I don't hear that kind of outrage or concern coming from enough people that would reverberate back within the highest echelons of the civilian and military leadership of Pakistan,' she said.

The Pakistani government maintains that it is not caving in or conceding ground to the Taliban but has instituted a pause in military operations to explore other alternatives to deal with the militants.

The Army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, said that the military is not allowing the Taliban to dictate the terms of governance in the region. He called it an 'operational pause meant to give the reconciliatory forces a chance, (that) must not be taken for a concession to the militants.'

The Army 'has resolved to fight to eliminate the militants, who endanger the lives of peaceful citizens of the country and challenge the writ of the state,' Kiani said, rejecting US concerns.

The Pakistani government has placed some of the blame on the United States and its use of unmanned aircraft to target Taliban and al-Qaeda militants near the Afghan border. The Pakistani government say the flights violate its sovereignty and that the accidental deaths of civilians fuel support for the insurgency.