With U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Afghanistan to discuss the war against terror with U.S., NATO and Afghan leaders, Pakistan launched a raid against suspected terrorist groups in its tribal areas.
Seven helicopters attacked a complex in South Waziristan (Pakistan) where local and foreign extremists had been training, according to Pakistani Major General Shaukat Sultan.
"I can't give you the exact number of casualties but most of them were believed killed," said General Shaukat.
The questions that logically arise are: why now? And is this more a show by Pakistan or is this a real effort to destroy what many intelligence experts consider a key refuge for Al Qaeda?
The "tribal areas" of Pakistan are a kind of "wild west; where even the Army of Pakistan fears to tread," a senior U.S. diplomat with expensive experience in Pakistan told us.
The senior U.S. diplomat told us, on condition of anonymity, that "Of course, Pakistan is a key U.S. ally in the war against terror."
We put the questions to the diplomat, who has represented the U.S. in Islamabad during his tenure with the State Department, after an official U.S. government report to Congress made an unusually harsh criticism of Pakistan last week.
In his annual "threat assessment" to Congress Thursday, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte pointedly said "the Taliban and Al-Qaeda maintain critical sanctuaries" in Pakistan.
"Pakistan is our partner in the war on terror and captured several Al-Qaeda leaders. However, it is also a major source of Islamic extremism," he said.
"Eliminating the safe haven that the Taliban and other extremists have found in Pakistan's tribal areas is not sufficient to end the insurgency in Afghanistan but it is necessary," Negroponte said.
The government of Pakistan bristled at Negroponte's remarks. The foreign ministry in Islamabad described them as "questionable criticism" and urged Negroponte to acknowledge the country's role in breaking the back of Al-Qaeda, responsible for the September 11 attacks in 2001.
The ministry said Pakistan had done more than any other country to fight terrorism.
A day after Negroponte's remarks, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday that Al Qaeda leaders had "secure hideouts" in Pakistan.
The government of Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf signed a controversial peace deal with tribal elders in early September, under which Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters would be expelled from the area, but cross-border attacks have reportedly increased markedly since then.
Just in the last few weeks, Pakistan said it was mining the border between the tribal areas and Afghanistan in an effort to stop cross-border incursion by terrorists, but our man on the ground Muhammad said the people being killed by the mines were "mostly herders and innocent travelers."
Peter Brookes at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC has said President Musharraf's policy in the tribal areas "is failing." Brookes is a former deputy US assistant secretary of defense.
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