Yesterday’s New York Times reported that the Obama administration is considering the expansion of its not-so-covert air campaign against the Taliban into Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan. Quetta, the provincial capital, is known to host the Taliban Shura Majlis, or executive council, which is led by Mullah Omar. At a press conference yesterday, a reporter directly asked Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about the United States potentially striking in Baluchistan. His answers were quite revealing:
First, clearly the U.S. military and intelligence services are pushing the Pakistanis hard to take on the Taliban leadership and support networks in Baluchistan. While Secretary Gates said this is a Pakistani problem, he did not rule out he possibility of U.S. airstrikes in Baluchistan. Second, the United States has no confidence in Pakistan’s desire or ability to tackle the Taliban problem. Instead of providing a diplomatic response such as ‘the Pakistani government and military have a difficult task ahead of it and is making strides to tackle the problem’, Gates abruptly declined to answer. The New York Times‘ report of the possibility of strikes in Quetta is a shot across Pakistan’s bow. With the U.S. military surging in southern Afghanistan and the Taliban’s efforts to pinch Kabul and gain more ground in the south and east, fighting is expected to intensify to its highest level since the Taliban was ousted from power in 2002. The United States has already expanded the air campaign in the northwest beyond the tribal areas. If the decision is made to hit the Taliban in Baluchistan, don’t expect the first strike to hit in Quetta–the likely targets will be the multitude of Taliban camps in the outlying districts such as Zhob.
