Pakistan on Sunday rejected American media report that President Bush's senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that the debate was a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban were intensifying efforts there to destabilise the Pakistan government. Pakistan military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said that Pakistan's security forces "are capable of maintaining peace" in the country.
He described as "baseless" the report that the US was debating new strategy for Pakistan, according to a private TV channel.
The NYT reported that Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of Bush top national security advisers met on Friday in White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination of Benazir. There was also talk of how to handle the period from now to the February 18 elections, and the aftermath of those elections.
Several of the participants in the meeting argued that the threat to the government of President Pervez Musharraf was now so grave that both Musharraf and Pakistan's new military leadership were likely to give the United States more latitude, officials said. But no decisions were made, said the officials, who declined to speak for attribution because of the highly delicate nature of the discussions.
Many of the specific options under discussion were unclear and highly classified. Officials said that the options would probably involve the CIA working with the military's Special Operations forces.
Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Sadiq said he was not aware of any meeting mentioned by NYT. He said that writers sometimes based their stories on speculations, with unnamed sources. He added that every speculative story did not need reaction.