- Senior officials in the Prime Minister's office have
launched an astonishing attack on America's handling of the hunt for Osama
bin Laden and al-Qa'eda fugitives.
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- They have told The Telegraph that troops carrying out
house-to-house searches in the remote tribal areas of Pakistan along the
Afghanistan border were "blundering" with a "march-in-shooting"
approach.
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- The US action was "backfiring", increasing
support for terrorism and making it harder for bin Laden and his henchmen
to be caught.
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- "The Americans think they and the Pakistanis can
just march in shooting", said an official closely involved in the
direction of the war.
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- "They don't understand the sensitivities. We have
years of experience in the tribal areas and we know using force will just
backfire and increase sympathy for al-Qa'eda."
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- The comments will put further strain on Anglo-US relations
after a week of tensions over the Middle East policy and the introduction
of steel tariffs.
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- The scale of the divide between London and Washington
was made plain by scathing comments about the Bush administration by one
British minister involved in negotiations over the steel tariffs.
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- "You have to remember that this is a rather unpleasant
administration," the minister told The Telegraph yesterday. "The
fact there has been a full-blooded attempt to forge a relationship with
it hasn't changed its fundamental nature - protectionist and self-interested."
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- A spokesman for US Central Command angrily rejected the
criticism. Col Rick Thomas said: "Our entire approach to removing
the Taliban from power and eliminating the al-Qa'eda threat has been sensitive
to regional issues.
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- "We have liaison teams co-ordinating with the Pakistani
military but have not been directly involved in any operations in that
area."
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- Although officially part of Pakistan, the tribal areas
have governed themselves since British colonial times.
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- They live by a strict code of honour, attacking and kidnapping
outsiders who stray into their mountain valleys.
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- Federal forces carry no mandate beyond the main highways
and disputes with the outside have traditionally been resolved through
negotiation between political agents and their chiefs, usually involving
large amounts of money.
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- Pakistan and the people of the tribal areas, who are
Pathans like the Taliban, with little sympathy for the war on terrorism,
refused to allow the search for al-Qa'eda to move there.
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- The Pentagon claims that at least 1,000 al-Qa'eda crossed
into the tribal areas late last year, possibly including bin Laden, and
are now regrouping.
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- After pressure from Washington, Pakistan agreed to deploy
12,000 troops in April, backed by US Green Berets, CIA paramilitaries and
British special forces.
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- Tribal leaders were furious. "This is not how things
work here", said Arsallah Hoti, a leading member of the powerful Yusufzai
tribe.
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- "They have been raiding our villages with less than
an hour's notice and even burst in on a wedding because they heard the
traditional firing of Kalashnikovs and assumed it was al-Qa'eda."
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- Mr Hoti visited London last week and expressed his concerns
to an adviser to Tony Blair. "I think people who were ambivalent to
al-Qa'eda in the tribal areas are now supporting them" he said.
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- "A lot more could have been achieved through the
old colonial way of negotiations rather than the American way of bombing
and killing. The British understand that."
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- Although Mr Blair and Mr Bush have presented the war
on terror as a united stand, the argument over how to proceed in the tribal
areas is the latest in a series of clashes between the British and American
forces on the ground.
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- The biggest rift came when the Royal Marines launched
Operation Condor without telling US commanders. Operation Condor failed
to capture any al-Qa'eda and Brigadier Roger Lane, the British commander,
was removed from his post.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n
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