As a diversionary tactic, Pakistan has tried to accuse Kabul and NATO of doing the same thing they have been accused of for years. Pakistani officials save their outrage for jihadist attacks that come back across the border into Pakistan, even when the attacks are organized by jihadist groups that are based in Pakistan.
Officers in the U.S. military have detailed the extent of Pakistani complicity in attacks originating on Pakistan’s side of the border, and there is ample evidence of Pakistan’s tipping off jihadists: most recently, it was reported that drone strikes became more successful after the U.S. withheld intelligence information from Pakistan.
Pakistan, for its part, will likely act insulted, make some threats, say now is just a terrible time to exacerbate “tensions,” and generally play the victim.
“Pakistan safe havens challenge U.S. Afghan effort,” by Susan Cornwell for Reuters, October 28:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Even as the United States begins to withdraw from Afghanistan, insurgents abetted by Pakistan pose the major threat to U.S.-led forces, the Pentagon said on Friday.
Security has improved in recent months and enemy attacks are down in Afghanistan compared to a year ago, the Pentagon said in a twice-annual report to the U.S. Congress.
NATO and Afghan forces largely “stunted” the Taliban’s spring and summer offensive, although the insurgency remains adaptive and resilient, with a “significant regenerative capacity,” the report said.
But attacks from across the eastern border were up because of the support the insurgency received from safe havens in Pakistan, it said.
“Safe havens in Pakistan remain the insurgency’s greatest enabler,” the report said.
These havens have grown more “virulent” in recent months “and are the most significant risk” to NATO’s campaign, it said.
The report comes as President Barack Obama’s administration has begun pulling surge forces from Afghanistan — withdrawing 10,000 this year and the remaining 23,000 by the end of September 2012.
Critics of Obama’s plan fear it could undermine the progress surge troops have made and point to faltering security in attacks in Afghanistan’s volatile east, along the porous border with Pakistan.
The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO), which advises aid and other groups on security, warned this month that the war appeared to be “escalating, not diminishing.”
The Pentagon said that recent high-profile attacks in Kabul, including a bold September 13 strike on the U.S. Embassy that rattled perceptions about security in the capital, were carried out by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network and “directly enabled by Pakistan safe haven and support.” […]
Iran also continues to provide lethal aid to insurgents, including weapons and training, the report said….