A former NATO officer reveals clandestine US incursions into Pakistan as part of a secret war in the northwestern tribal region regularly hit by CIA drone attacks.
American special forces conducted multiple illegal raids into Pakistan’s tribal areas, which were never declared to the Pakistani government, the unnamed officer told the Guardian.
The incursions, only one of which has been previously reported, occurred between 2003 and 2008, involving helicopter-borne elite soldiers crossing the border in the night.
“The Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it. It was one of those things we wouldn’t confirm officially with them,” he said.
The revelation comes amid growing anger in Pakistan against the CIA-led drone program that, according to local media, has killed many civilians in the lawless tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan, due to see an additional infiltration of 30,000 American soldiers shortly.
The US publicly acknowledged only one of the raids by its special forces in September 2008, prompting strong condemnation from Pakistan’s foreign office, which described it as “a grave provocation.” The military also threatened retaliatory action.
But the ex-NATO officer said that was the fourth raid of previous years, adding one of them was to rescue a crashed Predator drone because they did not trust Pakistani forces.
Washington has recently sent several senior officials to Islamabad to ask Pakistani officials for action against alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants in North Waziristan, and an expansion of CIA drone strikes into the western province of Balochistan.
But Pakistan’s intelligence officials reject such requests and accuse the US of “scapegoating” Pakistan for its own failures in Afghanistan.
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