India continues to dominate Pakistan's strategic thinking: US

Washington, Apr 6: Pakistan's efforts to launch a comprehensive fight against terrorism are greatly hampered by its perceived threat perception against India, US President Barack Obama has said in a new report to Congress.

"As India continues to dominate their strategic threat perception, large elements of Pakistan's military remain committed to maintaining a ratio of Pakistani to Indian forces along the eastern border," Obama said in the third-quarterly report to the Congress on Afghanistan and Pakistan sent yesterday.

"This deprives the Pakistani COIN (counter-insurgency) fight of sufficient forces to achieve its clear objectives and support the hold efforts and causing available Army forces to be bogged down with hold activities because there are insufficient trained civilian law enforcement personnel to assume that responsibility," Obama said in his 38-page classified version of the report.

Due to flood in Pakistan last year the offensive military operations Pakistan had envisioned for KP (Khaibar Pakhtoonwah) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the second half of 2010 were overtaken by events, he said.

"Militants were impacted by the floods as well, so we did not observe significant offensive actions on their side, but as Pakistani forces ceased offensive operations, extremists extended their control to areas without sufficient Pakistani central government-provided security and governance," he wrote.

Between Oct 1 and Dec 31, 2010, Obama said Pakistani security forces remained largely static, generally focusing on maintaining the security of previously cleared areas in the FATA and KP and continuing to support flood relief operations.

There were small but notable security operations in Nov and Dec in Orakzai Agency and Dir District, but no major operations.

National attention during the reporting period focused on the need for continued flood relief and the start of early recovery efforts, he said.

"The military served as a force of stability during the monsoons, ensuring that Pakistani and international emergency resources were available for rescue and relief operations. The Pakistan Army, Air Force, and Navy committed large numbers of personnel and resources to the flood relief operations throughout Oct and November," he said.

The civilian government's response suffered from a lack of coordination and reflected broader shortcomings in the government's ability to execute the civilian hold and build phases of COIN.

The last quarter of 2010 saw no progress on effectively executing the COIN cycle in KP and the FATA.

PTI