Jon, not sure why it didn't work for you, did for me. Here is the article:
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February 23, 2004
Pakistani Offensive Aims to Drive Out Taliban and Al Qaeda
By DAVID ROHDE and CARLOTTA GALL
SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 22 — Pakistan is preparing for a major military offensive against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces along its border with Afghanistan in the next several weeks, Pakistani government officials said this weekend.
The operation may be the first act of a violent, and potentially pivotal, spring season along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to Western diplomats, Pakistani military experts and American military officials.
American military officials said they expected Taliban and Qaeda fighters to try to disrupt national elections scheduled for June in Afghanistan. American and Pakistani officials said they would step up their efforts to gain control of the rugged border region, the area where they believe the fugitive Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, is hiding.
Pakistani officials denied recent news reports that the whereabouts of Mr. bin Laden and his deputy, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, had been narrowed down to an area of several dozen square miles. Instead, they said the planned offensive was part of a calculated, step-by-step campaign to drive Qaeda members over the border to where American forces would be waiting for them.
"There has certainly been pressure building up on Al Qaeda and their tribal supporters," a senior Pakistani official said Saturday. "They are on the run and we will not let this momentum peter out."
Muhammad Azam Khan, the top Pakistan government official in the South Waziristan tribal agency, said he had requested a steep increase in the number of Pakistani troops in the area — to 12,000 from 4,000. Hundreds of Qaeda members, including Chechen and Uzbek fighters, are thought to be hiding in the border area and mounting attacks on American forces in nearby Afghanistan.
"We are waiting for the troops to come," Mr. Khan said in an telephone interview Sunday. "Ours is a large area that requires a large number of troops."
Last Tuesday, the commander of the American-led forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, told reporters that American and Pakistani forces were trying to work together like a "hammer and anvil" to trap and destroy Taliban and Qaeda forces.
Lt. Col. Matthew P. Beevers, director of public affairs for coalition forces in Afghanistan, said Saturday the new tactics included having small groups of soldiers deployed to villages for days at a time. By distributing aid and becoming a more permanent presence, American officials hope to gain the trust of Afghans and collect better intelligence. In the past, large groups of American forces carried out vast offensives and sweeps, and then returned to their bases.
"We are using small units much more than big-scale offensive operations," Colonel Beevers said.
Afghan officials and Western diplomats in Kabul said they were now, finally, getting "full cooperation" from Pakistani forces along the border. Since the fall of the Taliban in December 2001, Afghan officials had complained that Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was not making a serious effort to crack down on Taliban fugitives.
In recent weeks, however, there has also been a sharp shift in General Musharraf's public statements. After months of playing down the presence of Qaeda and Taliban fighters on the Pakistan side of the border, he has repeatedly stated in speeches that Qaeda members are in Pakistan and must be eradicated. He has also promised that militants who surrender to the Pakistan authorities will not be handed over to the United States.
"I am fully confident that we will combat them," General Musharraf said in a speech to Islamic scholars last Wednesday, referring to foreign militants who he said misused Pakistan territory to advance their own agenda, state-run media reported.
A Western diplomat and senior Afghan official in Kabul, as well as a leading Pakistani military expert and senior Pentagon officials, said the shift occurred after General Musharraf was nearly assassinated by suicide bombers on Dec. 25.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani military expert, said the militants, whom the Pakistan Army covertly backed in the past, were now directly challenging the military, which has dominated the country for decades.
"These groups are challenging the army," Mr. Rizvi said. "And the army never likes to let the initiative slip out of their hands."
Pakistani military officials dismissed those explanations and insisted that they had always aggressively tracked Qaeda and Taliban members. They point out that General Musharraf brought the army into the tribal areas in 2001 for the first time in Pakistan history and that Pakistani forces have arrested 500 suspected Qaeda members. Afghan and Western critics, for their part, point out that nearly all those arrested were low-level Qaeda members, and that few senior Taliban have been apprehended in Pakistan.
On Sunday, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the Pakistan Army's chief spokesman, denied reports from Kabul that coalition forces were now able to enter Pakistan in "hot pursuit" of militants. He also played down talk of an offensive and declined to describe troop movements.
"The president has said many times where we will carry out an operation whenever it is necessary," General Sultan said.
Preparations for a new offensive are being made two months after Pakistan adopted a harsh, British colonial-era tactic of collective responsibility in the tribal areas.
Under this system, Pakistani officials massed troops in South Waziristan and handed tribal leaders a list of Pakistani men suspected of sheltering Qaeda members. If the tribe did not hand over the men, the entire tribe would be punished. The houses of the wanted men would be destroyed, state spending in the area would be cut and, if necessary, tribal members would be detained until the men surrendered.
In recent days, Pakistani officials said the tactic had not produced the desired results. Tribes have handed over only 48 of 82 wanted men, all low-level figures who lack the information Pakistani officials want.
David Rohde reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, for this article and Carlotta Gall from Kabul, Afghanistan. Mohammed Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.
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OBL's execution!!!!!
