Category: Foreign Affairs

WASHINGTON, June 20: President Donald Trump’s administration appears ready to harden its approach toward Pakistan to crack down on home-based militants launching attacks in neighbouring Afghanistan, US officials tell Reuters.
Potential Trump administration responses being discussed include expanding US drone strikes, redirecting or withholding some aid to Pakistan and perhaps eventually downgrading Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some US officials, however, are skeptical of the prospects for success, arguing that years of previous US efforts to curb Pakistan’s support for militant groups have failed, and that already strengthening US ties to India, Pakistan’s arch-enemy, undermine chances of a breakthrough with Islamabad.
US officials say they seek greater cooperation with Pakistan, not a rupture in ties, once the administration finishes a regional review of the strategy guiding the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan. Precise actions have yet to be decided.

The White House and Pentagon declined to comment on the review before its completion. Pakistan’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “The United States and Pakistan continue to partner on a range of national security issues,” Pentagon spokesperson Adam Stump said.

But the discussions alone suggest a shift toward a more assertive approach to address safe havens in Pakistan that have been blamed for in part helping turn Afghanistan’s war into an intractable conflict. Experts on America’s longest war argue that militant safe havens in Pakistan have allowed Taliban-linked insurgents a place to plot deadly strikes in Afghanistan and regroup after ground offensives.

Although long mindful of Pakistan, the Trump administration in recent weeks has put more emphasis on the relationship with Islamabad in discussions as it hammers out a regional strategy to be presented to Trump by mid-July, nearly six months after he took office, one official said. “We’ve never really fully articulated what our strategy towards Pakistan is. The strategy will more clearly say what we want from Pakistan specifically,” the US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Other US officials warn of divisions within the government about the right approach and question whether any mix of carrots and sticks can get Islamabad to change its behaviour. At the end of the day, Washington needs a partner, even if an imperfect one, in nuclear-armed Pakistan, they say.

Congressman urges Trump to consider resuming airstrikes in Pakistan
The United States is again poised to deploy thousands more troops in Afghanistan, an acknowledgment that US-backed forces are not winning and Taliban militants are resurgent. Without more pressure on militants within Pakistan who target Afghanistan, experts say additional US troop deployments will fail to meet their ultimate objective: to pressure the Taliban to eventually negotiate peace.

“I believe there will be a much harder US line on Pakistan going forward than there has been in the past,” Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, told Reuters, without citing specific measures under review. Kabul has long been critical of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan.

Pakistan fiercely denies allowing any militants safe haven on its territory. “What Pakistan says is that we are already doing a lot and that our plate is already full,” a senior government source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The source doubted the Trump administration would press too hard, saying: “They don’t want to push Pakistan to abandon their war against terrorism.”

Afghan president blames Pakistan for home-grown violence
Pakistani officials point towards the toll militancy has taken on the country. Since 2003, almost 22,000 civilians and nearly 7,000 Pakistani security forces have been killed as a result of militancy, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, which tracks violence. Experts say Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan is also driven in part by fears that India will gain influence in Afghanistan.

Is Pakistan an ally?
Nuclear-armed Pakistan won the status as a major non-NATO ally in 2004 from the George Bush administration, in what was at the time seen in part as recognition of its importance in the US battle against al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents.

The status is mainly symbolic, allowing limited benefits such as giving Pakistan faster access to surplus US military hardware. Some US officials and experts on the region scoff at the title. “Pakistan is not an ally. It’s not North Korea or Iran. But it’s not an ally,” said Bruce Riedel, a Pakistan expert at the Brookings Institution.
But yanking the title would be seen by Pakistan as a major blow.

SCO membership likely to pose fresh challenges for Pakistan
Lisa Curtis, senior director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, co-authored a report with Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington, in which they recommended the Trump administration warn Pakistan the status could be revoked in six months. “Thinking of Pakistan as an ally will continue to create problems for the next administration as it did for the last one,” said the February report. It was unclear how seriously the Trump administration was considering the proposal.

The growing danger to Afghanistan from suspected Pakistan-based militants was underscored by a devastating May 31 truck bomb that killed more than 80 people and wounded 460 in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency said the attack – one of the deadliest in memory in Kabul – had been carried out by the Haqqani network with assistance from Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies. Washington believes the strikes appeared to be the work of the Haqqani network, US officials told Reuters.

US frustration over the Haqqani’s presence in Pakistan has been building for years. The United States designated the Haqqani network as a terrorist organisation in 2012. US Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, then the top US military officer, told Congress in 2011 that the Haqqani network was a “veritable arm” of the ISI.

American soldiers wounded, not killed in incident at Afghan base: US official

The potential US pivot to a more assertive approach would be sharply different than the approach taken at the start of the Obama administration, when US officials sought to court Pakistani leaders, including former Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.

David Sedney, who served as Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia from 2009 to 2013, said the attempt to turn Islamabad into a strategic partner was a “disaster.” “It didn’t affect Pakistan’s behaviour one bit. In fact, I would argue it made Pakistan’s behaviour worse,” Sedney said.

More drones, cash cut-off
Pakistan has received more than $33 billion in US assistance since 2002, including more than $14 billion in so-called Coalition Support Funds (CSF), a US Defense Department programme to reimburse allies that have incurred costs in supporting counter-insurgency operations.

It is an important form of foreign currency for the nuclear-armed country and one that is getting particularly close scrutiny during the Trump administration review. Last year, the Pentagon decided not to pay Pakistan $300 million in CSF funding after then-US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter declined to sign authorisation that Pakistan was taking adequate action against the Haqqani network.

US officials said the Trump administration was discussing withholding at least some assistance to Pakistan. Curtis’ report also singled out the aid as a target. But US aid cuts could cede even more influence to China, which already has committed nearly $60 billion in investments in Pakistan.

Top career US diplomat in China embassy steps down
Another option under review is broadening a drone campaign to penetrate deeper into Pakistan to target Haqqani fighters and other militants blamed for attacks in Afghanistan, US officials and a Pakistan expert said. “Now the Americans (will be) saying, you aren’t taking out our enemies, so therefore we are taking them out ourselves,” the Pakistan expert, who declined to be identified, said.

Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa last week criticised “unilateral actions” such as drone strikes as “counterproductive and against (the) spirit of ongoing cooperation and intelligence sharing being diligently undertaken by Pakistan”.

The Saudi-Qatari standoff poses a great diplomatic challenge to Pakistani authorities as they enjoy close economic and geopolitical ties with both Riyadh and Doha. Can Pakistan afford to remain neutral in the conflict?
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif embarked Monday on a one-day visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia along with the country’s army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and the foreign ministry staff.

The urgency of the trip shows that Sharif faces a tough diplomatic challenge in Riyadh.

Islamabad enjoys cordial relations with both Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but the diplomatic standoff in the Gulf region, which saw Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sever ties with Qatar, means the Pakistani government now faces a predicament – to choose between Riyadh and Doha.

For now, Pakistani authorities do not want to take sides, but in the coming days, and with Saudi officials’ increasingly belligerent stance toward Iran and its allies in the region – including Qatar – remaining neutral could prove to be difficult.

“Since Pakistan enjoys good relations with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar, we will try our best to resolve the differences between the Arab countries,” PM Sharif told journalists during a recent visit to Kazakhstan.
Pakistan also denied reports that it had sent some 2,000 troops to Qatar’s aid after the crisis erupted.

Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria stressed that “these false reports appear to be part of a malicious campaign aimed at creating misunderstanding between Pakistan and brotherly Muslim countries in the Gulf.”
Besides the obvious diplomatic dilemma, Pakistani authorities are also in a quandary because of their nation’s economic ties with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

The Islamic country receives large revenue from the Pakistani citizens working in the Arab countries. More than 1.9 million Pakistanis live in Saudi Arabia, while the UAE hosts 1.2 million, according to government data. Qatar hosts some 115,000 Pakistani nationals.

“The Pakistani government has close economic ties with Doha. PM Sharif signed a crucial gas deal with Qatar to ease the country’s energy crisis,” Usama bin Javed, an Islamabad-based Middle East expert, told DW.
London-based Pakistani analyst, Farooq Sulehria, says that the largest sum of Pakistan’s foreign exchange comes from Saudi Arabia. “There is a mammoth work force of Pakistani laborers in the Arab countries. It would be ‘suicidal’ to offend the Saudis,” Sulehria told DW.

Diplomatic predicament
Even if the Saudi-Qatari dispute gets resolved through regional and international efforts – the United States and the European Union have urged a quick resolution of the standoff – Pakistan’s long-term problems in relation to the Saudi-Iranian rivalry won’t go away easily. After all, Riyadh’s main concern about Doha is the latter’s alleged ties with terrorist groups that Saudi authorities say are promoting Tehran’s geopolitical agenda in the region.

Saudi authorities have leverage over Pakistan, and they have been persistent in their demands that Islamabad assists them in the Yemeni war as well as a larger regional security alliance led by Riyadh.

Despite parliament’s decision last year against becoming a party to the intensifying Saudi-Iranian conflict in the Middle East, in April Islamabad approved the appointment of Raheel Sharif, the country’s former army chief, as head of the 39-member Saudi-led military coalition. Riyadh says the Muslim nations’ alliance was formed to fight terrorism in the region, but experts point out that it is primarily an anti-Iran grouping. Naturally, Tehran is not part of the coalition.

The Pakistani government has sent mixed signals about Raheel Sharif’s position in the alliance in the past few weeks, especially after US President Donald Trump’s last month’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Media reports claim that Raheel Sharif is contemplating heading back to Pakistan as a result of Washington and Riyadh’s now official anti-Iran posture. But Raheel Sharif’s speculated departure from Saudi Arabia is as much shrouded in mystery and secrecy as was his decision to join the Saudi-led alliance.

“Pakistani armed forces are already part of the Saudi military alliance. This gives Islamabad an opportunity to mediate in the crisis. But it has to be very careful,” analyst Javed said, adding that Pakistan could not afford a prolonged Gulf crisis.

Security analyst Sabir Karbalai suggests Islamabad should take the issue to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-member forum of Muslim-majority nations.

“If Pakistan can’t leave the Saudi alliance, it should put its activities on hold and together with Turkey try to resolve the dispute between Riyadh and Doha,” Karbalai told DW.

But it’s probably easier said than done. With Saudi Arabia-US alliance stronger than ever after Trump’s coming to power in the US, Pakistan cannot afford to cozy up with Iran. In the rapidly changing geopolitical milieu, Islamabad has aligned itself by forging closer ties with China and Russia, but it cannot afford to go all the way against Washington and Riyadh.

Sectarian strife
Pakistan’s intelligentsia and civil society have advised PM Sharif to remain neutral in the Gulf crisis as Islamabad’s support to Saudi Arabia could also increase the Sunni-Shiite tension in the South Asian country. Analysts believe that Pakistan’s Sunni militant groups already feel emboldened by the fact that the nation’s ex-army chief is linked with the Saudi security alliance.

The sectarian strife in Pakistan has been ongoing for some time now, with militant Islamist groups unleashing terror on the minority Shiite groups in many parts of the country. Most of these outfits, including the Taliban, take inspiration from the hardline Saudi-Wahabi Islamic ideology.

For Pakistan’s Islamic fanatics, the country “is already a ‘Sunni Wall’ against Shiite Iran,” Siegfried O. Wolf, an expert at the University of Heidelberg’s South Asia Institute, told DW in an interview.

Experts say that while Pakistan will try to demonstrate its neutrality in the Saudi-Iran regional rivalry, in practice and in terms of policies, its closeness to Riyadh and the hardline Sunni ideology will remain intact. But domestically, this will plunge Pakistan into a bigger security crisis than it is already in.

Additional reporting by Sattar Khan, DW’s Islamabad correspondent.

WASHINGTON, DC: The anger behind Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday had been building for months, but a turning point came when Comey refused to preview for top Trump aides his planned testimony to a Senate panel, White House officials said.

Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had wanted a heads-up from Comey about what he would say at a May 3 hearing about his handling of an investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

When Comey refused, Trump and his aides considered that an act of insubordination and it was one of the catalysts to Trump’s decision this week to fire the FBI director, the officials said.

“It gave the impression that he was no longer capable of carrying out his duties,” one official said. Previews of congressional testimony to superiors are generally considered courteous.

Comey, who testified for four hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it made him feel “mildly nauseous” that his decision to make public his reopening of a probe into Clinton’s handling of classified information might have affected the outcome of the Nov. 8 presidential election. But he said he had no regrets and would make the same decision again.

Trump’s sudden firing of Comey shocked Washington and plunged Trump deeper into a controversy over his campaign’s alleged ties with Russia that has dogged the early days of his presidency.

Democrats accused the Republican president of firing Comey to try to undermine the FBI’s probe into Russia’s alleged efforts to meddle in the 2016 election and possible collusion with members of the Trump campaign, and demanded an independent investigation. Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans called his dismissal of Comey troubling.

The Trump administration said on Tuesday Comey was fired because of his handling of the Clinton email probe.
Before he axed Comey, Trump had publicly expressed frustration with the FBI and congressional probes into the Russia matter. Moscow has denied meddling in the election and the Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia.

A former Trump adviser said Trump was also angry because Comey had never offered a public exoneration of Trump in the FBI probe into contacts between the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Sergei Kislyak, and Trump campaign advisers last year.

According to this former adviser, Comey’s Senate testimony on the Clinton emails likely reinforced in Trump’s mind that “Comey was against him.”

“He regretted what he did to Hillary but not what he did to Trump,” the former Trump adviser said of Comey.
Clinton has said that the Comey decision to announce the renewed inquiry days before the election was a likely factor in her loss to Trump.

Aides said Trump moved quickly after receiving a recommendation on Monday to terminate Comey from Rosenstein, who began reviewing the situation at the FBI shortly after taking office two weeks ago.

Trump’s move was so sudden that his White House staff, accustomed to his impromptu style, was caught off guard. Stunned aides scrambled to put together a plan to explain what happened.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer ended up briefing reporters about the move in the dark on Tuesday night near a patch of bushes steps away from the West Wing.

Comey, who was in Los Angeles meeting with FBI employees on Tuesday and returned later to Washington, has made no public comment on his firing.

Many questions remained about what caused Trump to move so quickly.

Two former senior Justice Department officials said it made little sense to fire Comey while the Justice Department Inspector General was still doing a review of the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation.

“I take Rod (Rosenstein) at his word that be believed everything in that memo but he must know that it’s going to be used as a fig leaf to fire Comey,” one former official said.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters it was her “understanding” Comey had been seeking more resources for his investigation into the tangled Russia controversy.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had pondered dumping Comey as soon as he took office on Jan. 20, but decided to stick with him.

Trump shrugged off the political firestorm he created with Comey’s dismissal as he met with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

Asked by reporters why he fired Comey, Trump said, “He wasn’t doing a good job, very simply. He wasn’t doing a good job.”

(Additional reporting by Joel Shectman, Julia Edwards Ainsley and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Caren Bohan and Frances Kerry)

The US has dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in eastern Afghanistan on a series of caves used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, the military said.

The bomb was dropped on Thursday from a MC-130 aircraft in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said.

Also known as the “mother of all bombs,” the GBU-43 is a 9,797kg GPS-guided munition and was first tested in March 2003, just days before the start of the Iraq war.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a press release that the strike was designed to minimise the risk to Afghan and US forces conducting clearing operations in the area.

But the ultra-heavy explosive – equal to 11 tons of TNT with a blast radius of 1.6km on each side – could potentially cause many civilian casualties.

The bomb landed in the Momand Dara area of Achin district, according to district Governor Esmail Shinwari.

“The explosion was the biggest I have ever seen. Towering flames engulfed the area,” Shinwari told AFP news agency.

“We don’t know anything about the casualties so far, but since it is a Daesh [ISIL] stronghold we think a lot of Daesh fighters may have been killed.”

General John Nicholson, the head of US and international forces in Afghanistan, said the bomb was used against caves and bunkers used by ISIL in Afghanistan, also known as ISIS-K.

“As ISIS-K losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defence.

“This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K,” Nicholson said in a statement.

ISIL’s offshoot in Afghanistan, created in 2015, is also known as the “Khorasan Province”.

Mark Kimmitt, a retired brigadier general in the US army and former deputy assistant secretary of defense, downplayed the use of the GBU-43, saying it is “just another tool the military has.”

“It allows us to go after deeply buried and hardened structures. It’s good use against tunnels and it’s also good use because it’s going to set off IEDs in the area,” he told Al Jazeera.

Kimmitt said it was not at all certain that “political authorities” were informed of the raid before it was carried out.

“Although the size of the bomb was a bit larger than normal, it was a routine military mission against a routine military target,” he said.

The White House would not confirm whether or not President Donald Trump had authorised the use of the bomb.

“Everybody knows exactly what happened and what I do is I authorise my military,” Trump told reporters.

“We have the greatest military in the world and they’ve done their job as usual. So, we have given them total authorisation.”

US officials say intelligence suggests ISIL is based overwhelmingly in Nangarhar and neighbouring Kunar province, among tens of thousands of civilians.

Estimates of the group’s strength in Afghanistan vary. US officials have said they believe its has only 700 fighters, but Afghan officials estimate it has closer to 1,500.

Western and Afghan security officials believe fighters frequently switch allegiances between armed groups, making it difficult to know who is to blame for violence

BEIJING — With President Xi Jinping safely out of the United States and no longer President Trump’s guest, China’s state-run media on Saturday was free to denounce the missile strike on Syria, which the American president told Mr. Xi about while they were finishing dinner.

Xinhua, the state news agency, on Saturday called the strike the act of a weakened politician who needed to flex his muscles. In an analysis, Xinhua also said Mr. Trump had ordered the strike to distance himself from Syria’s backers in Moscow, to overcome accusations that he was “pro-Russia.”

That unflattering assessment reflected China’s official opposition to military interventions in the affairs of other countries. But it was also a criticism of Mr. Trump himself, who Mr. Xi had hoped was a man China could deal with.

Chinese officials had feared that the two leaders’ 24-hour encounter at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida might be marred by a campaign-style anti-China outburst from Mr. Trump. Instead, it was interrupted by the unexpected missile attack.

Some Chinese analysts viewed the strike’s timing as no coincidence. Mr. Trump wants China to do more to deter the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea, its ally, and these analysts viewed the Syria attack as a reminder to Mr. Xi that the United States could also attack the North, if necessary.

The missile strike on Syria overshadowed meetings that American and Chinese officials described as big-picture conversations on trade as well as North Korea, which stopped short of producing specific agreements.

Both sides agreed that the North Korean threat had reached a “very serious” stage, according to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson. He said the United States was prepared to take its “own course” if China did not do more to rein in the North.

But the official Chinese account of the talks in Xinhua did not mention North Korea — a burning issue for Mr. Trump, but less so for Mr. Xi. Analysts said the omission was probably intentional, a response to the attack on Syria.

Xinhua’s commentary on the Syria strike also made no reference to North Korea. But it mentioned American missile attacks on Libya in 1986 and Sudan in 1998, and scolded the United States for not achieving its “political goals” in those instances.

“It has been a typical tactic of the U.S. to send a strong political message by attacking other countries using advanced warplanes and cruise missiles,” the article said.

The state-run media offered sanitized accounts of the Mar-a-Lago talks, emphasizing the sweeping green lawns on which the leaders walked and the ornate room where the official discussions took place. Those articles omitted the surprise of the Syria attack, in keeping with the goal of presenting an uplifting account of the two leaders meeting as peers.

Mr. Tillerson told reporters that when Mr. Trump notified Mr. Xi about the Syria strike toward the end of dinner, Mr. Xi expressed understanding, because it was punishment for a chemical attack that had killed children.
The Chinese president very rarely talks to the Chinese or foreign news media, making it almost impossible to determine his opinion about the attack or how he expressed it to Mr. Trump.

But Chinese analysts, whose advice is sometimes sought by the government on foreign policy questions, were scornful of the strike, which they viewed as a powerful country attacking a nation unable to fight back. And they rejected what they viewed as an unspoken American message equating Syria, which has no nuclear arsenal, with North Korea, which has carried out five nuclear arms tests and hopes to mount a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental missile.

“I don’t deny that the United States is capable of such an attack against North Korea, but you need to see that North Korea is capable of striking back,” said Lu Chao, director of the Border Studies Institute at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences. “That would create chaos.”

If Syria had nuclear weapons, the United States would not dare attack it, said Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Chemical weapons and nuclear weapons are totally different,” Mr. Shen said. “A chemical bomb kills dozens of people, and the atomic bomb at Hiroshima killed hundreds of thousands.”

Mr. Chen added that many Chinese were “thrilled” by the attack because it would probably result in the United States becoming further mired in the Middle East.

“If the United States gets trapped in Syria, how can Trump make America great again? As a result, China will be able to achieve its peaceful rise,” Mr. Chen said, using a term Beijing employs to characterize its growing power. “Even though we say we oppose the bombing, deep in our hearts we are happy.”

On trade, Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump agreed to a “100-day plan” that Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross said would include “way stations of accomplishment.” American business executives took that to mean there had been no deep negotiations on whether China would further open its markets to American companies.

Business leaders had expected the Chinese to announce investments in the United States that would create jobs, as a way to offset some of Mr. Trump’s complaints about the countries’ trade imbalance. But Mr. Xi made no such offers, at least publicly. According to an account in Xinhua, the Chinese invited the United States to participate in a program it calls One Belt One Road, an ambitious effort to build infrastructure projects across Asia to Europe, for which China hopes it can attract some American investment.

“The Chinese did not want to create the impression that Xi went to the U.S. to make concessions to Trump, that would come across as weakness,” said Yun Sun, a senior associate in the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

In the preparations for the talks, Chinese officials emphasized that they expected few concrete results because they viewed the Florida encounter as a getting-to-know-you session between two big personalities. In that sense, the Chinese prevailed, Ms. Yun said.

“It will be Trump who will have difficulty explaining to his voters what he got from the Chinese,” she said.
Yufan Huang contributed research.