Critical Triangle continues....

Consequently by the end of 2008 the US expanded its drone warfare in response to Pakistani inaction. While the ISI kept quiet about the strikes they approved, they actively provoked protests against strikes that targeted their jihadi allies. In effect, Pakistan was using US drones to keep control over its western border, but was at the same time stoking anti-Americanism.

On 26 November 2008 just about a month after the new chief of the ISI, General Shuja Pasha took over command, the Mumbai Attacks commenced, killing 166 people, including Americans. The lone survivor who was arrested, Ajmal Kasab, turned out to be a Pakistani. Involved or not, the ISI immediately tried to cover its tracks, denying journalists access to Kasab’s village in Pakistani Punjab. But the official denials had stopped working, and the Bush Administration in its last days simply lost any sympathy for Pakistan. Over the next few days, National Security Advisor, Mehmud Durrani and Ambassador Haqqani were hauled over the coals by the US State Department. Assistant Secretary of State, John Negroponte, asked Pakistan “to come clean,” rejecting Pakistan’s requests for evidence, claiming, in effect, that the Pakistani judiciary was running a grievously flawed judicial process, and demanding access to the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) planners who had been arrested.

To be continued....