Halt in US drone strikes helps Pak militants

ERIC SCHMITT

A nearly two-month lull in US drone strikes in Pakistan has helped embolden al-Qaeda and several Pakistani militant factions to regroup, increase attacks against Pakistani security forces and threaten intensified strikes against allied forces in Afghanistan, US and Pakistani officials say.

The insurgents are increasingly taking advantage of tensions raised by a US airstrike in November that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers in two border outposts, plunging relations between the countries to new depths. The Central Intelligence Agency, hoping to avoid making matters worse while Pakistan completes a wide-ranging review of its security relationship with the US, has not conducted a drone strike since mid-November.

Diplomats and intelligence analysts say the pause in CIA missile strikes — the longest in Pakistan in more than three years — is offering for now greater freedom of movement to an insurgency that had been splintered by in-fighting and battered by US drone attacks in recent months. Several feuding factions said last week that they were patching up their differences, at least temporarily, to improve their image after a series of kidnappings and, by some accounts, to focus on fighting Americans in Afghanistan. Other militant groups continue attacking Pakistani forces. Just last week, Taliban insurgents killed 15 security soldiers in retaliation for the death of a militant commander.

The spike in violence in the tribal areas comes amid reports of negotiations between Pakistan's government and some Taliban factions.

A logistics operative with the Haqqani terrorist group said militants could still hear drones flying surveillance missions, day and night. "There are still drones, but there is no fear anymore," he said in a telephone interview. The logistics operative said fighters now felt safer to roam more freely.

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