Americans’ dirty tactics

The Afghan militants’ attack on the Shaltalu checkpost in Upper Dir on Wednesday should finally shake our ruling leadership out of the belief that the occupying army across the border is a friendly force with which Pakistan had struck a deal to root out militancy. For, it is inconceivable that as massive a number as between 300 and 400 terrorists could cross over into Pakistan, carrying light and heavy weapons, without a nod, rather encouragement, from the ISAF and the Afghan government.If Washington blames Islamabad for playing a double-game by a selective targeting of terrorists – fighting against those who train their guns on Pakistan and doing nothing about those who attack the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan from our territory (read North Waziristan) – it should also accept the responsibility for this raid. One would even be inclined to believe that the Americans are trying to give us a message through these militants that in case we continued to resist their pressure to launch a military operation in North Waziristan, we should expect more of such deadly incursions into the country in future. Also confirming the conclusion that the Wednesday attack was deliberately engineered is President Hamid Karzai’s suggestion made to the US only recently that the war on terror needed to be fought on the Pakistani soil on the outlandish assumption that this is the place where actually terrorists exist and that Afghanistan has no such elements.