War option: Shift focus to Pakistan

WASHINGTON — The White House is considering expanding counterterror operations in Pakistan to refocus on eliminating al-Qaida instead of mounting a major military escalation in Afghanistan, according to officials.

Two senior administration officials said Monday that the renewed fight against the terrorist organization could lead to more missile attacks on Pakistan terrorist havens by unmanned U.S. spy planes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made.

Top aides to President Barack Obama said he still has questions and wants more time to decide.

The officials said the administration would push ahead with the ground mission in Afghanistan for the near future, still leaving the door open for sending more U.S. troops. But Obama's top advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden, have indicated they are reluctant to send many more troops - if any at all - in the immediate future.

In weekend interviews, Obama emphasized that disrupting al-Qaida is his "core goal" and worried aloud about "mission creep" that moved away from that direction. "If it starts drifting away from that goal, then we may have a problem," he said.

The proposed shift would bolster U.S. action on Obama's long-stated goal of dismantling terrorist havens, but it could also complicate American relations with Pakistan, long wary of the growing use of aerial drones to target militants along the porous border with Afghanistan.

The prospect of a White House alternative to a deepening involvement in the war in Afghanistan comes as administration officials debate whether to send more troops - as urged in an assessment of the conflict by the top U.S. commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

The two senior administration officials said Monday that one option would be to step up the use of missile armed unmanned spy drones over Pakistan that have killed scores of militants over the last year.

The armed drones could contain al-Qaida in a smaller, if more remote area, and keep its leaders from retreating back into Afghanistan, one of the officials said.

Most U.S. military officials have preferred a classic counterinsurgency mission to keep al-Qaida out of Afghanistan by defeating the Taliban and securing the local population.

However, one senior White House official said it's not clear that the Taliban would welcome al-Qaida back into Afghanistan. The official noted that it was only after the 9/11 attacks that the United States invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban in pursuit of al-Qaida.

Pakistan will not allow the United States to deploy a large-scale military troop buildup on its soil. However, its military and intelligence services are believed to have assisted the U.S. with airstrikes, even while the government has publicly condemned them.

The Pakistan Embassy in Washington did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Over the past few weeks, White House and Pentagon officials have debated the best way to defeat al-Qaida - and whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to battle the extremist Taliban elements that hosted Osama bin Laden and his operatives in the 1990s and have continued to aid the terrorist group.

McChrystal has argued that without more troops the United States could lose the war against the Taliban and allied insurgents.

"Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it," McChrystal wrote in a five-page Commander's Summary that was unveiled late Sunday by The Washington Post. His 66-page report, which was also made public by the Post in a partly classified version after appeals from Pentagon officials, was sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Aug. 30 and is now under review at the White House.

Police officials from some of Afghanistan's most violent regions questioned the need for more American troops, saying Monday that it would increase the perception the U.S. is an occupying power and the money would be better spent on local forces.

The officials come from some of the provinces where the militant threat is the strongest and where international soldiers and Afghans alike have struggled for years to keep the peace.

"It is very hard for local people to accept any foreigners who come to our country and say they are fighting for our freedom," said Gen. Azizudin Wardak, the police chief in Paktia province. "To give the idea that they are not invaders, that they are not occupiers, is very difficult."

Mohammad Pashtun, the chief of the criminal investigation unit in southern Kandahar province, the Taliban's heartland, said that the money would be better off going to Afghan forces.

"Increasing international troops is not useful," he said. "For the expense of one American soldier, we can pay for 15 Afghan soldiers or police."

The Afghan army is trying to build a force of 134,000 soldiers by fall 2010, but McChrystal's assessment said the target should be 240,000, though it did not give a date. It said the police force must grow from a current 92,000 to 160,000.

White House officials have made clear that Pakistan should be the top concern since that is where top al-Qaida leaders, including bin Laden himself, are believed to be hiding. Very few al-Qaida extremists are believed to still be in Afghanistan, according to military and White House officials.

There have been more than 50 missile strikes against Pakistan targets since August 2008, according to an Associated Press count. Two weeks ago, a U.S. drone killed a key suspected al-Qaida recruiter and trainer, Pakistani national Ilyas Kashmiri.

Meanwhile, the U.N.-backed panel investigating fraud in Afghanistan's presidential vote has agreed to allow a recount of just a sampling of hundreds of thousands of suspect ballots to speed a process some fear could stretch into spring, an official said Monday.

Preliminary results from the Aug. 20 poll show President Hamid Karzai winning with 54.6 percent, but if enough votes are thrown out because of fraud it could drop him below 50 percent, forcing a runoff with top challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

Time for a second vote is running short: Winter snows typically start in mid-November and make much of the country impassable. But waiting for spring to hold the poll could create a power vacuum in a country already destabilized by the resurgent Taliban and delay both government projects and military operations.

The earliest a second round can be held is the third week in October, when a U.N. report issued Monday said that ballots and indelible ink would be ready.

The U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, the final arbiter on disputed ballots, has said there was "clear and compelling evidence of fraud" countrywide and ordered a recount and audit of ballots at about 3,000 polling stations because of suspect tallies. It is unclear how many ballots that includes, but European Union monitors have said enough Karzai votes were questionable that he could drop below the benchmark.

Afghan officials have said a full audit and recount could take two or three months.

Also on Monday, Italy held a state funeral Monday for six soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and teary-eyed relatives, officials and thousands of citizens saluted their flag-draped coffins and observed a national day of mourning.

The roadside bombing in the Afghan capital Thursday also killed 10 Afghans and wounded four Italian soldiers who attended the funeral.

Information for this article was contributed by Lara Jakes, Anne Gearan, Jennifer Loven, Judith Ausuebel, Jason Straziuso, Rahim Faiez, Heidi Vogt and Alessandra Rizzo of The Associated Press.