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'Re-Established' Al-Qaida After Pakistan, Gates Says

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By THOMAS E. RICKS, The Washington Post

Published: December 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - A resurgent al-Qaida terrorist network has shifted the focus of its attacks to Pakistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday.

"Al-Qaida right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistan people," Gates said.

The Pentagon chief did not specify the nature or location of the group's operations in the South Asian nation, but he went on to say that al-Qaida has "re-established itself" along Pakistan's ungoverned area along its border with Afghanistan.

Gates' assessment of the group's revival echoed the findings of U.S. intelligence officials this summer that al-Qaida has gained strength and established safe havens in western Pakistan. Robert Cardillo, the Defense Intelligence Agency's deputy director for analysis, at the time blamed the renewal on an agreement Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf made with tribal chiefs in 2006 to withdraw army units from the border area. The notion that it is turning its efforts against Pakistan, however, indicates that the Bush administration views tumult in Pakistan as a battle against al-Qaida rather than an internal struggle between Musharraf and other politicians.

Gates also said the Pakistani army has had "some success" with its recent fighting against religious militants in the Swat region, also near the Afghan border but north of the tribal areas. Pakistani military officials said last week that they had put down a local Islamic extremist rebellion there.

Experts on Pakistani security affairs had mixed reactions.

"I think Gates is right on this one," said Karl F. Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of state for South Asia. He noted that in September, Osama bin Laden called on Pakistanis to fight Musharraf, his army and his other supporters.

A Pentagon specialist on counterterrorism efforts on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, who requested anonymity, disagreed with Gates. "My info suggests that the Pakistanis are not doing very well in Swat." He also said fighters there are not affiliated with al-Qaida.

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