Al Qaeda in Pakistan

Blast in Pakistan Kills Al Qaeda Commander

The headlines for the past couple days have featured the killing of al Qaeda leader Hamza Rabia, in Pakistan’s remote tribal regions, probably by a Predator drone.

Farther down this WaPo article is this unsettling, but familiar, view of Pakistan’s ambiguous role in the war on terror:

The Bush administration had no public comment on Rabia’s death. In the past, the administration has publicly praised Pakistan as a partner in the fight against terrorism. But U.S. officials have become increasingly frustrated with what they see as limited cooperation from the Pakistani military and intelligence services in the hunt for bin Laden.

In June, CIA Director Porter J. Goss said he had “an excellent idea” where bin Laden was hiding but lamented that the al Qaeda leader had taken advantage of “sanctuaries in sovereign states” beyond American reach. Although Goss did not single out the Pakistani government as the problem, U.S. and European officials said bin Laden had almost certainly taken refuge in the semi-autonomous tribal areas near the Afghan border.

Musharraf has recently acknowledged that he is not eager for bin Laden to be caught in his country, where he is seen as a hero to many and is probably more popular than Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 bloodless military coup. “One would prefer that he’s captured somewhere outside Pakistan, by some other people,” he said in an October interview with Time magazine.

Counterterrorism officials and analysts said Pakistan serves not just as a hiding place but as an effective base of operations for al Qaeda and other Islamic radical networks, giving them the ability to plan or carry out attacks around the world.

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