US envoy faces tough S Asia test

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Pakistani Taleban - Mr Holbrooke brings a 'new focus' to the war against militants By M Ilyas Khan BBC News, Islamabad

The American special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has a tough task ahead of him.

Not only must he come up with an effective strategy to curb extremism in Afghanistan, he must also devise shrewd ways to appease Afghanistan's meddlesome neighbours.

Since Monday, he has been on a familiarisation trip to Pakistan, which has a history of direct involvement in Afghanistan and is believed by many to be a major cause of the current unrest in the region.

Pakistan's security establishment is also widely accused of using militancy as a policy tool in dealing with India and Afghanistan - neighbours with whom it has had strained relations.

Army role

A part of Mr Holbrooke's job will be to determine whether this security establishment has a strategic interest in the spread of Islamic extremism, or whether it simply lacks the capacity to deal with it.

Mr Holbrooke has described the situation in Pakistan as dire

While doing so, he will also be mindful of what many observers call Pakistan's "deceptive" political system, in which the security establishment tends to play a greater role than is normally evident.

On Tuesday, Mr Holbrooke met Pakistan's political leadership, including President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Later in the day he held meetings with Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the country's army chief, and Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha, director-general of Pakistan's premier intelligence service, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

Reports say that while most discussions have been "exploratory" in nature, Mr Holbrooke has stressed US financial commitments to Pakistan, as well as the US desire to put an end to militant sanctuaries in the Pakistani tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

The Americans, who are in the process of reviewing their policy towards Afghanistan, consider Pakistan's army as a key factor in the fight against militants.

But in recent months they and their allies in Nato - which has thousands of troops stationed in Afghanistan - have been accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to wipe out militant sanctuaries in its north-western region.

Mr Holbrooke is here to clear up the mess, and one of his more dependable allies in Pakistan is likely to be the civilian leadership <a class="" href="/1/hi/world/south_asia/7870340.stm">Nosedive in Afghan-US relations</a>

Some of them have even accused "rogue" elements in the ISI of training and funding Taleban militants to destabilise Afghanistan.

Pakistan denies this, pointing out that it has lost hundreds of soldiers in the fight against the Taleban.

Over the past couple of years, several Pakistani officials and retired generals-turned-defence analysts have been building a case to explain why the so-called "war on terror" has led to an expansion rather than a contraction of militancy.

According to them, the insurgency is fuelled by the presence of Western troops in Afghanistan, and once these troops leave the insurgents will go home.

They also blame the "corruption and inefficiency" of the Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, as one of the causes of the spread of militancy.

They argue that if Afghan and Nato troops together can fail to curb militancy in Afghanistan, how can Pakistan, with fewer resources and little technology, succeed?

'Safe havens'

But independent observers have a different view.

American money... is the greatest leverage [Richard Holbrooke] can employ to achieve this aim They say the Taleban insurgency took shape in the Pakistani "safe haven" of Waziristan at a time when the overwhelming majority of Afghan people had supported the 2001 overthrow of the Taleban government.

This support was evident in the 2004 elections when a large number of Afghans voted for President Karzai.

They believe things worsened when the Bush administration made the "strategic error" of shifting the entire focus of the "war on terror" to Iraq.

The Americans not only ignored the reconstruction needs of Afghanistan, they say, but also failed to commit sufficient troops to deal with Pakistan so as to forestall a comeback by the Taleban.

The results have horrified foreign governments as well as people in Pakistan.

The sanctuary of the militants has expanded from the diminutive Wana region of Waziristan to the entire Pakistani tribal belt, as well as to parts of the adjoining North West Frontier Province.

Meanwhile, Western intelligence analysts say that after pouring $10bn into Pakistan for its war effort, the Bush administration did not succeed in reducing the threat of militant attacks.

Mr Holbrooke is now here to clear up this mess, and one of his more dependable allies in Pakistan is likely to be the civilian leadership that is directly threatened by the militants.

As such, his test will lie in his ability to devise mechanisms to minimise the role of the Pakistani security establishment in charting the country's geo-political strategy.

American money, which has helped keep this security establishment alive and strong, is the greatest leverage he can employ to achieve this aim.