US halts drone strikes in Pak as Sharif seeks peace with Taliban

New York: In order to make nice with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government and help his efforts at peace talks with the Pakistan Taliban, the Obama administration has temporarily halted drone strikes in Pakistan. “That’s what they asked for, and we didn’t tell them no,” a senior US official familiar with the CIA’s drone campaign, told The Washington Post. It’s no secret that a US drone strike in November which killed Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud days before an initial attempt at peace talks put paid to them. Sharif’s government then accused Washington of trying to sabotage the talks, and the Taliban canceled the meeting. Intermediaries representing Sharif’s government and Taliban insurgents, who are usually referred to as the TTP, will meet later this week. Initial talks scheduled for Tuesday already failed when Sharif canceled them after two of the five proposed Taliban representatives withdrew. Imran Khan declined the Taliban invitation to represent them as did Mufti Kafayatullah, whose Jamiat Ulemai-Islam religious party joined the government coalition in January. [caption id=“attachment_1307423” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AP[/caption] The absence of US drone strikes since December is the longest pause in the CIA’s drone campaign since a six-week lull in 2011, after a US strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at a border post, triggering bad blood. The American last used drones in December when two missiles hit at a home in the village of Qutab Khel in North Waziristan killing three Arab men. The US administration, of course is playing down any suggestion that it’s invested in Sharif’s attempts to have peace talks with the Taliban. “The issue of whether to negotiate with the Pakistani Taliban is entirely an internal matter for Pakistan,” a senior US administration official told the Post. The administration is “continuing to aggressively identify and disrupt terrorist threats in the Afghan war theater and outside areas of active hostilities in line with our established CT [counterterrorism] objectives and legal and policy standards…Reports that we have agreed to a different approach in support of Pakistani peace talks are wrong,” added the senior official. After being sworn in, Sharif insisted that the option of peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban be explored, despite opposition from the powerful military. Now he is less enthusiastic given the wave of terror attacks in Pakistan in the last eight months. However, Sharif wants to establish his credentials as a national leader so he has asked the Obama administration to end CIA drone strikes against militant targets in Pakistan’s tribal areas. They have ceased since December, but there is more to it than meets the eye. According to a US narrative, Sharif is using the talks with the Taliban to “unite public opinion” against the Taliban. The talks are almost certain to fail but Sharif can always say he did the right thing by trying to engage in peace efforts. Then the country will support him when he presses ahead with a massive military strike at the Taliban militants’ headquarters in North Waziristan. This will please the Americans who would like Pakistan to secure the lawless northwest tribal areas by the time they withdraw their combat troops from Afghanistan by December 2014. Pakistan is reportedly seeking the support of the US-led forces on the Afghan side of the border to cut off TTP escape routes. “That level of security cooperation, not seen since a 2011 plunge in diplomatic relations, has been key to previous Pakistani counterterrorism successes, notably in January 2009, when Pakistan successfully assaulted the Bajaur tribal area and wiped out the TTP’s second-largest faction. Then, US forces on the Afghan side of the border prevented their flight from a massive Pakistani campaign of aerial bombing,” noted Tom Hussain in the McClatchy Newspapers.