U.S. may equip Pakistan with drones.

Note that the drones to be supplied are surveillance drones not those capable of making attacks. Gates seems to be acting as a cheerleader (and enforcer as well) to push Pakistan towards even further attacks on Islamic militants in the tribal territories.

CSMonitor.com.

US may equip Pakistan with drone aircraft, Gates says
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told leaders on his visit to Islamabad that all of South Asia faces instability if Al Qaeda goes unchecked in Pakistan.




By Ben Hancock Correspondent

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates landed Thursday in Islamabad with the goal of pressing Pakistan to stamp out Al Qaeda and other terrorist factions that he earlier warned could destabilize South Asia.

In his first visit to the country since the inauguration of the Obama White House, Mr. Gates said the US is considering supplying Pakistan with unarmed drone aircraft. While Pakistan has publicly called America's use of drones a violation of sovereignty, Islamabad has requested the technology for itself, Reuters reported.


"We are in partnership with the Pakistani military and we are working to give them their own intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance vehicles, both aircraft and drones," Gates said.



Until now, the US has not been willing to share the technology, The Hindustan Times reports.


The Pakistan government, which has opposed US drone attacks in its tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, had been pressing the American administration to provide it unmanned aerial vehicle technology so that its armed forces could carry out attacks on Taliban fighters. Till now, the US had refused to provide drones or UAV technology to Pakistan, which has a small number of indigenously developed spy planes.

Gates arrived after a meeting in India with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders. He told reporters there that focusing antiterror efforts on a single group would be a grave error, reports The New York Times.


“It’s dangerous to single out any one of these groups and say, ‘If we could beat that group that would solve the problem,’ because they are in effect a syndicate of terrorist operators,” Gates said. In short, he said, “the success of any one of these groups leads to new capabilities and a new reputation for all.”

The secretary also warned that a Pakistani failure to keep domestic terror cells in check could escalate into an international incident, referring to the 2008 rampage in Mumbai, which was blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba. “I think it is not unreasonable to assume Indian patience would be limited were there to be further attacks,” Gates said.

His visit comes amid increasing local concern about growing US involvement in Pakistan, reports the BBC. That compounds anger over civilian deaths in drone attacks along the country’s border with Afghanistan, where US officials believe many Taliban leaders are holding out.

But a recent US aid package that triples nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan, to the tune of $1.5 billion annually until 2015, has left Islamabad’s leadership somewhat bound to American antiterror efforts, says Reuters. Pakistan has lost about 2,000 troops fighting the Taliban so far and is expected to launch a new offensive close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border later this year, according to reports.

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Earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said the military option is not the only way to fight terrorism, The News reported.


"Only 10 percent success can be achieved through operations while 90 percent success is possible through economic development,” Gilani said.

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Pakistani Govt. Split on Terror Policy

This is from antiwar.com. While at present Pakistan may not be able to do much but look as if it is carrying out US demands the fact that China is helping out in the Pakistani financial crisis is significant. Pakistan may be able to call upon countries not all that favorable to the US for aid. Even by threatening to do so they may obtain some leverage over their treatment by the US but probably not much. The Pakistani military depends upon the US almost entirely I expect.
The Zardari government seems as if it is doomed. Perhaps Zardari himself will meet the same fate as his wife Benadir Bhutto.



Pakistani Govt Split on Terror Policy
Posted October 17, 2008
Last week’s rare intelligence briefing for the Pakistani parliament was meant to unite MPs behind President Asif Ali Zardari’s terror strategy, but seems to have been an utter failure. While members of the opposition were already calling for an end to cooperation with the US and peace talks to end the rising violence in the country, the briefing seems to have polarized even what’s left of the President’s tenuous coalition government.
Though only a small part of the current coalition since most of the party boycotted the 2008 elections over Musharraf’s state of emergency, the Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (JUI) is a highly influential party in Pakistan. They demanded, while the Pakistani Army was presenting information to the parliament, that the Tehreek-e Taliban (TTP) be allowed to address the parliament as well.
The TTP offered unconditional talks to the Pakistani government earlier this week, and offered once again to lay down their arms in return for an end to the military’s offensives against them. There are reports that the government has turned down this latest offer as well, and the military claims to have killed another 60 militants in the latest air strike in Swat Valley.
The opposition has also increased its criticism. Former Musharraf government minister Tariq Azim says “the majority of the people of Pakistan do not see it as our war,” while an MP from Nawaz Sharif’s powerful PML-N complained that “the US are trying to externalize their failure in Afghanistan by dumping it on us.”
Pakistan’s terror policy seems all the more pressing as the global economic crisis leaves the nation teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. This led Pakistani Defense Secretary Kamran Rasool to warn last week that the government could not abandon the terror war without facing sanctions and financial ruin. This may be a less convincing argument since Pakistan secured significant financial help from China this week