NO ONE WILL MIND IF WE JUST IRRADIATE THE WHOLE REGION:

Message to Musharraf (Jim Hoagland, January 22, 2006, Washington Post)

The Hellfire missiles aimed from a Predator drone at the bin Laden operatives gathering in Damadola also carried a badly needed message for Musharraf and his intelligence chiefs, who helped create both al Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban: The sanctuary those groups have been granted in Pakistan's remote tribal lands on the Afghan frontier now exceeds the limits of strategic ambiguity.

Suicide bombings and attacks with roadside explosive devices directed at U.S. and NATO troops as well as Afghan authorities have spiked upward in recent months. U.S. intelligence reports to the Pakistanis on terrorist locations and movements along the frontier have received no effective response from Pakistani authorities during this damaging terrorist upsurge.

"You can draw the Afghan-Pakistan border on a map by looking at the pattern of signal intercepts," says one U.S. official. "The bad guys chatter away in Pakistan, feeling they are safe. That area lights up like a Christmas tree. Then they go silent when they cross into Afghanistan, where they fear getting hit."

The aerial strike on Damadola, which is four miles inside Pakistan, killed as many as four al Qaeda chiefs, Pakistani officials concede. Villagers have reported 18 deaths, including some women and children. Musharraf is happy to have Washington bear the entire blame in Pakistani opinion for the reports of collateral damage.

But the story, and the moral burden it involves, seems to be more complicated. The Damadola raid followed by a week a little-noticed assault on the Pakistani village of Saidgi in North Waziristan, where residents described helicopter-borne foreign troops grabbing suspects and flying them back to Afghanistan.

Two limited, carefully planned border attacks in rapid succession would appear to be something more than accidents of opportunity.

The thing Musharraff has to keep in mind is that the very remoteness of the region, which makes it a good hiding place for these guys, allows us to make it a free-fire zone. There's not going to be extensive media coverage in the badlands.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 22, 2006 9:20 AM