February 22, 2005 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Philip Giraldi, publisher of ‘Intelligence Brief’ and a former CIA officer has revealed that stung by repeated intrusions by American troops across the border from Afghanistan (in hot pursuit of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants), General Musharraf has authorised Pakistani troops to fire back. (linkthanks Vijay Dandapani)
While shooting incidents across the border are not new, what is significant is that while past skirmishes were attributed to low-level troops and their field commanders, this time it is General Musharraf himself who has approved the orders.
Giraldi’s contention is that Musharraf was forced to this because the United States failed to bolster his position. That is conventional wisdom. But while he has supported the United States in capturing Arab and other non-local al-Qaeda operatives, Musharraf has always been reluctant to apprehend ethnic-Pashtun Taliban. Disappointment with the United States is a convenient pretext, he issued those orders because he could.
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