US, Pakistan form an anti-terror squad

WASHINGTON: The US and Pakistan are building a joint intelligence team to go after top terrorist suspects inside Pakistan, US and Pakistani officials said, a fledgling step to restoring trust blown on both sides by the killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces during a secret raid last month.

The move comes after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented the Pakistanis with the US list of most-wanted terrorism targets, US and Pakistani officials said Wednesday.

The investigative team will be made up mainly of intelligence officers from both nations, according to two US and one Pakistani official. It would draw in part on any intelligence emerging from the CIA's analysis of computer and written files gathered by the Navy SEALs who raided bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, as well as Pakistani intelligence gleaned from interrogations of those who frequented or lived near the bin Laden compound, the officials said.

The formation of the team marks a return to the counterterrorism cooperation that has led to major takedowns of al-Qaida militants, like the joint arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003. All those interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

The US and Pakistan have engaged in a diplomatic stare-down since the May 2 raid, with the Pakistanis outraged over the unilateral action as an affront to its sovereignty, and the Americans angry to find that bin Laden had been hiding for more than five years in Abbottabad.

The US deliberately hid the operation from Pakistan for fear that the operation would leak to militants.

A series of high-level US visits has aimed to take the edge off. Marc Grossman, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell met with intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha last month. Last week, the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, held a day of intensive meetings with top Pakistani military and civilian officials.

Among the confidence-building measures was a visit by the CIA to re-examine the bin Laden compound last Friday. Pakistan also returned the tail section of the US stealth Black Hawk helicopter that broke off when the SEALs blew up the aircraft to destroy its secret noise- and radar-deadening technology.

The CIA has also shared some information gleaned from the raid, and Pakistan has reciprocated, US and Pakistani officials said Wednesday.

The joint intelligence team will go after five top targets, including al-Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri, and al-Qaeda operations chief Atiya Abdel Rahman, as well as Taliban leader like Mullah Omar, all of whom US intelligence officials believe are hiding in Pakistan, one US official said.

Another target is Siraj Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani tribe in tribal areas. Allied with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the Haqqanis are behind some of the deadliest attacks against US troops and Afghan civilians in Afghanistan. US intelligence officials say their top commanders live openly in Miram Shah.

Pakistani officials say the US has never provided them accurate intelligence as to the Haqqani leaderships' location. Pakistani officials also argue that as the Haqqani network has been careful never to attack the Pakistani government, there is no reason to attack them.

One official said a final target on this preliminary list is Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, leader of a group called Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, which the State Department blames for several attacks in India and Pakistan, including a 2006 suicide bombing against the US consulate in Karachi that killed four people.

A second US official confirmed that the Pakistanis and Americans have agreed to go after a handful of militants as a confidence-building measure, but the official would not confirm the specific names on the list.

Pakistani officials say those five have always been top targets, but they too did not confirm that the new agreement specifically names them as joint targets.

Intelligence-sharing operations between the US and Pakistan were already strained before the bin Laden raid, particularly by the arrest and detention in January of CIA security contractor Raymond Davis in the shooting deaths of two Pakistani men. – Agencies