Pakistan dismissed as speculation a US newspaper report Wednesday that Washington is considering whether to expand its covert war in Pakistan beyond tribal areas on the Afghan border. “We have seen the report. It appears to be speculative and we cannot comment on speculations,” foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said. The New York Times reported that US President Barack Obama and his national security advisers were considering whether to strike the southwest province of Baluchistan, where it said Taleban leaders were orchestrating attacks into Afghanistan. It quoted administration officials as saying that two high-level reports on Pakistan and Afghanistan sent to the White House have called for broadening the target area, to include a major insurgent sanctuary in and around the city of Quetta. Mullah Muhammad Omar, who led the Taleban government ousted by the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, has operated with near impunity out of the region for years, along with many of his deputies, the newspaper said. Suspected US missile strikes in Pakistan have so far been limited to the country's lawless tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan and have never been extended to Baluchistan, which comes under central government authority. “It is fair to say that there is wide agreement to sustain and continue these covert programs,” an unnamed senior US administration official told the newspaper. “One of the foundations on which the recommendations to the president will be based is that we've got to sustain the disruption of the safe havens.” On the issue of Bachulistan however, top Obama advisers however are split. Some fear that such strikes could increase tensions with Pakistan, which said in late February it wanted to discuss ending controversial US drone attacks inside its territory. Thirty-five such strikes have killed more than 340 people since August 2008. Six have been blamed on unmanned US aircraft since Obama came to power, dashing Pakistani hopes that his administration would abandon the policy. Islamabad protests that drone strikes violate its territorial sovereignty and warns of a domestic backlash in the nuclear-armed Islamic nation. “On drone attacks, Pakistan's general policy is that we think they are counter productive,” Basit said. Some US officials say the missile strikes have forced some Taleban and Al-Qaeda leaders to flee south towards Quetta, the New York Times reported.
