To indicate in the aftermath of the NATO summit in Portugal in November that the West is intensifying its concentration on the Afghanistan-Pakistan war front, since the summit ended on November 20 several major officials from NATO countries have visited Afghanistan: U.S. President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and First Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, Romanian President Traian Basescu and Defense Minister Gabriel Oprea, French Defence Minister Alain Juppe, Canadian Governor General David Johnston and U.S. Secretary of the Navy Raymond Mabus.
Chancellor Merkel told German troops in Kunduz province: "What we have here is not just a warlike situation. You are involved in combat as in war." [4]
Afghanistan is the cynosure of the Western military bloc's worldwide military strategy, which now has expanded to include Pakistan.
2010 was the deadliest year of the over nine-year war in regard to U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) missile attacks in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where at least 117 strikes killed 1,000 people. In 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency directed less than half that amount - 53 - of lethal operations in Pakistan. December was among the most lethal months of the year, with at least 115 people killed in eleven missile attacks. [5]
The intensity and ferocity of the strikes compelled Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to warn that "drone attacks were affecting efforts to end terrorism in the country, therefore we condemn it and we are against it." [6]
On Christmas Day General David Petraeus, commander of all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, was in the war zone and stated, "there will be more coordinated military operations on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border."
He insisted on more "hammer and anvil operations" after revealing that "there had already been coordinated operations on both sides of the border, with Pakistani forces on one side and NATO and Afghan troops on the other." [7]
Two NATO helicopter gunships staged the latest violation of Pakistani air space shortly after Petraeus spoke, entering the Landi Kotal area of Khyber Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. NATO intrusions into Pakistan have been mounting since last September and on the 30th of that month a NATO helicopter attack killed three Pakistani soldiers.
The U.S. and NATO are slated to deploy troops to a Pakistani military base in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, which borders Iran and where the Pentagon and CIA have operated out of the Shamsi air base, southwest of the capital, for years. NATO helicopters have also entered the airspace of Balochistan, marking an expansion of operations from the tribal areas into the heart of Pakistan.
In recent weeks reports have disclosed that the U.S. will supplement CIA drone missile strikes and NATO helicopter gunship raids in Pakistan's tribal areas with special forces operations.
A Russian analyst commented on that development in ominous tones:
"Till now US troops have invaded Pakistan only sporadically. The launch of an operation against the Taliban in Pakistan may create new problems for Washington and may lead to the expansion of the Afghan threat." [8]
It is in fact the latest escalation of the Afghan war into Pakistan. One that will increase combat operations, deaths and destruction on both sides of the border in the new year beyond the record levels of the last.
1) Voice of Russia, December 27, 2010
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/12/27/37888169.html
2) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, December 27, 2010
3) Associated Press, December 26, 2010
4) Agence France-Press, December 19, 2010
5) America's Undeclared War: Deadly Drone Attacks In Pakistan Reach Record
High
Stop NATO, September 26, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/americas-undeclared-war-deadly-drone-attacks-in-pakistan-reach-record-high
6) Trend News Agency, December 30, 2010
7) Associated Press, December 26, 2010
8) Yevgeny Kryshkin, NATO's Afghan campaign goes off course
Voice of Russia, December 27, 2010
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/12/27/37888169.html
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