Suicide attack reveals threat to Obama's Afghanistan plan

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Posted on Thu, Jan. 14, 2010
Suicide attack reveals threat to Obama's Afghanistan plan
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: January 14, 2010 06:09:52 PM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan has exposed the collaboration among militant Islamist groups on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and aggravated tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan, Washington's most important ally in its war against al Qaida and the Afghan Taliban.

Officials of both countries and independent analysts said the attack in Khost, Afghanistan, 10 miles from the Pakistani border, increases the likelihood that the Pakistani military will bow to pressure from Washington and expand its anti-Taliban offensive along the border.

Pakistan's reluctance so far to act more aggressively on its side of the border threatens to jeopardize the Obama administration's plan to begin withdrawing some U.S. troops from Afghanistan next year, which the president outlined in his Dec. 1 speech announcing his decision to send some 30,000 or more troops to the country.

Richard Holbrooke, the administration's special envoy to the region, sounded a more cautious note Thursday. Visiting Islamabad, he said that there'd be no neat peace deal to end the war in Afghanistan and that even after foreign troops pull out, "the international community is going to have to face up to a long term commitment" to finance the Afghan army and police.

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