Pakistan

SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE STATEMENT OF GENERAL DAVID H. PETRAEUS, U.S. ARMY, COMMANDER U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND BEFORE THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE ON THE AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN STRATEGIC REVIEWAND THE POSTURE OF U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND
01 APR 2009

Pakistan is facing its own insurgency from militants and extremists operating from the country’s tribal areas. As in Afghanistan, violent incidents in Pakistan, particularly bombings and suicide attacks, have increased over the past three years. Most of these have targeted security personnel and government officials, but some have intended a more public impact, as we saw with the tragic assassination of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the more recent attacks in Mumbai. In response to this extremist activity, the Pakistani military has stepped up operations against militants in parts of the tribal areas, expanding a campaign that the Pakistani military has been prosecuting against extremists for more than seven years. The Pakistani military has sacrificed much during this campaign, and we will support their efforts in two ways.

First, we will expand our partnership with the Pakistani military and Frontier Corps. We will provide increased US military assistance for helicopters to provide airmobility, night vision equipment, and training and equipment - specifically for Pakistani Special Operations Forces and their Frontier Corps to make them a more effective counter-insurgency force. We will also expand our outreach and exchange programs to build stronger relationships with the Pakistani leadership.

Second, we will help promote cooperation across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border by providing training, equipment, facilities, and intelligence. These efforts will promote sharing of timely intelligence information, help to deconflict and coordinate security operations on both sides of the border, and limit the flow of extremists between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Within the counter-insurgency construct we have laid out for Afghanistan and Pakistan, we will of course continue to target, disrupt, and pursue the leadership, bases,and support networks of Al Qaeda and other transnational extremist groups operating in the region. We will do this aggressively and relentlessly. We will also help our partners work to prevent networks from reconstituting themselves, assisting them with delegitimizing the terrorists’ methods and their ideology, addressing legitimate grievances to win over reconcilable elements of the population, and promoting broad-based economic and governmental development.