The U.S. has compiled a wide body of intelligence on the locations of militant training camps in Pakistan, but has been unable to persuade Islamabad to shut them down, current and former officials say.
A former senior administration official said the biggest concern is a network of camps in North Waziristan from which the Taliban and al Qaeda-linked groups train and recruit fighters, as well as build improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Some of the camps are associated with the Haqqani Network, an insurgent group that carries out attacks on NATO troops from its hide-outs in North Waziristan and which is widely believed to have links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Persuading Pakistan to crack down in North Waziristan is taking on added importance. NATO plans in coming months to step up its counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan’s Regional Command East — or RC-East, as it is called — after ridding the southern region around Kandahar of many Taliban safe havens.
The new war in the east could be hamstrung if the Taliban and al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups are allowed to simply cross back into North WaziristanÂ’s safe havens. |