Beyond the Salala probe

Coalition forces will surely be gone one day but Pakistan will continue to be a player in the region.

The tense debate between Islamabad and Washington after the Salala tragedy of November 26, in which the Pakistan Army lost around two dozen of its officers and men in the worst-recorded incident of cross-border operations-induced fatalities since the beginning of US-led military operations in Afghanistan a decade ago, seem to be gaining some closure. However, there are lessons to be learnt in the latest developments — the most critical among them regarding the increasing gap of trust between Pakistani, Afghan and Nato/Isaf forces deployed in the region.

The US military’s report on Salala, made public after more than a month of investigations which received no input from an angry Pakistani military, appears to verify certain facts that the Pakistanis had said on the tragedy. It also makes some worrying revelations about gaps in Nato/Isaf’s operational and command structure. For instance, after receiving a message from the Pakistani side to cease fire, a Nato officer delayed notifying a senior commander by 45 minutes. There is also a new disclosure that a US AC-130 gunship flew two miles into Pakistani airspace to target local troops and this cannot possibly be considered to support the US military’s claims of using ‘appropriate force’. However, the report fails to confirm the Pakistani military’s position that its troops did not engage US/Afghan forces across the border first — and that may remain a point of tension.

While immediately implementing the corrective actions recommended in its own report, the US should continue to engage the Pakistani military, especially in Nato/Isaf’s tactical, operational and strategic plans till 2014 and after. The coalition forces will surely be gone one day. But Pakistan will continue to be a source of potential stability or instability in the region, depending on how the next few years go. It would thus be best for the US to consider Pakistan an equal stakeholder in this region and support it to make the right choices.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2011.