Updated on
Summary
US special forces have conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan's tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region where Washington is pressing to expand its drone assassination programme, British newspaper claimed. A former Nato officer said the incursions, only one of which has been previously reported, occurred between 2003 and 2008, involved helicopter-borne elite soldiers stealing across the border at night, and were never declared to the Pakistani government. The Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it, the newspaper reported. While public opinion has grudgingly tolerated CIA-led drone strikes in the tribal areas, any hint of American boots on the ground is greeted with virulent condemnation. After the only publicly acknowledged special forces raid in September 2008, Pakistan's foreign office condemned it as a grave provocation while the military threatened retaliatory action. The military source said that was the fourth raid of previous years. Two of the others targeted Taliban and al-Qaida high-value targets near the border, while the third was to rescue a crashed Predator drone. He said that the US sent elite soldiers to the downed Predator because they did not trust Pakistani forces. People were afraid they would take the parts and reverse- engineer its components, he said.
