Islamabad to get more US support

Washington: The Obama administration has decided to offer Pakistan more military, intelligence and economic support, and to intensify US efforts to forge a regional peace, despite ongoing frustration that Pakistani officials are not doing enough to combat terrorist groups in the country's tribal areas, officials said.

The decision to double down on Pakistan represents the administration's attempt to call the bluff of Pakistani officials who have long complained that the United States has failed to understand their security priorities or provide adequate support.

That message will be delivered by Vice-President Joe Biden, who plans to travel to Pakistan this week for meetings with military chief General Ashfaq Kayani and top government leaders.

Strategy

Biden will challenge the Pakistanis to articulate their long-term strategy for the region and indicate exactly what assistance is needed for them to move against Taliban sanctuaries in areas bordering Afghanistan. The strategy, determined in last month's White House Afghanistan war review, amounts to an intensifying of existing efforts to overcome widespread suspicion and anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, and build trust and stability.

President Barack Obama and his top national security aides rejected proposals, made by some military commanders and intelligence officials who have lost patience with Pakistan, to allow US ground forces to conduct targeted raids against insurgent safe havens, officials said. They concluded that the United States can ill afford to threaten or further alienate a precarious, nuclear-armed country whose cooperation is essential to the administration on several fronts. The conclusions were referred to in a publicly released, five-page summary of the review as unspecified policy "adjustments."

Several administration officials said that the classified review identified areas where stronger effort was needed rather than specific new programmes. The review resolved to "look hard" at what more could be done to improve economic stability, particularly on tax policy and Pakistan's relations with international financial institutions.

Properly tailored

It directed administration and Pentagon officials to "make sure that our sizeable military assistance programmes are properly tailored to what the Pakistanis need, and are targeted on units that will generate the most benefit" for US objectives, said one senior administration official who participated in the review and was authorised to discuss it on condition of anonymity.

Pakistan has complained in the past that promised US aid, currently projected to total more than $3 billion (Dh11 billion) in 2011, has been slow to arrive and that requests for helicopters and other military equipment have remained unfulfilled.

Beginning with Biden's visit, the time may be ripe for a frank exchange of views and priorities between the two sides, another administration official said.