Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
K. Alan Kronstadt
Specialist in South Asian Affairs
October 21, 2011
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R41832
CRS Report for Congress
Pr
epared for Members and Committees of Congress
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Summary
This report summarizes important recent developments in Pakistan and in Pakistan-U.S. relations.
Obama Administration engagement with Pakistan has been seriously disrupted by recent events.
A brief analysis of the current state of Pakistan-U.S. relations illuminates the main areas of
contention and uncertainty. Vital U.S. interests related to links between Pakistan and indigenous
American terrorism, Islamist militancy in Pakistan and Islamabad’s policies toward the Afghan
insurgency, Pakistan’s relations with historic rival India, nuclear weapons proliferation and
security, and the troubled status of Pakistan’s domestic setting are reviewed. Ongoing human
rights concerns and U.S. foreign assistance programs for Pakistan are briefly summarized, and the
report closes with an analysis of current U.S.-Pakistan relations.
In the post-9/11 period, assisting in the creation of a more stable, democratic, and prosperous
Pakistan actively combating religious militancy has been among the most important U.S. foreign
policy efforts. Global and South Asian regional terrorism, and a nearly decade-long effort to
stabilize neighboring Afghanistan are viewed as top-tier concerns. Pakistan’s apparently
accelerated nuclear weapons program and the long-standing dispute with India over Kashmir
continue to threaten regional stability. Pakistan is identified as a base for numerous U.S.-
designated terrorist groups and, by some accounts, most of the world’s jihadist terrorist plots have
some connection to Pakistan-based elements.
While Obama Administration officials and most senior congressional leaders have continued to
recognize Pakistan as a crucial partner in U.S.-led counterterrorism and counterinsurgency
efforts, long-held doubts about Islamabad’s commitment to core U.S. interests have deepened
considerably in 2011. Most independent analysts view the Pakistani military and intelligence
services as too willing to distinguish among Islamist extremist groups, maintaining links to some
as a means of forwarding Pakistani’s perceived security interests. Top U.S. officials have offered
public expressions of acute concerns about Islamabad’s ongoing apparent tolerance of Afghan
insurgent and anti-India militants operating from Pakistani territory. The May 2011 revelation that
Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden had enjoyed apparently years-long and relatively
comfortable refuge inside Pakistan led to intensive U.S. government scrutiny of the now deeply
troubled bilateral relationship, and sparked much congressional questioning of the wisdom of
existing U.S. foreign assistance programs to a government and nation that may not have the
intention and/or capacity to be an effective U.S. partner. Pakistan is among the leading recipients
of U.S. aid both in FY2011 and in the post-9/11 period, having been appropriated about $22
billion in assistance and military reimbursements since 2001. With anti-American sentiments and
xenophobic conspiracy theories rife among ordinary Pakistanis, persistent economic travails and a
precarious political setting combine to present serious challenges to U.S. decision makers.
This report will be updated periodically. For broader discussion, see CRS Report R41307,
Pakistan: Key Current Issues and Developments, by K. Alan Kronstadt.
Congressional Research Service
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Contents
Overview.......................................................................................................................................... 1
Major Developments in 2011........................................................................................................... 4
High-Profile Political Assassinations ........................................................................................ 4
The Raymond Davis Affair........................................................................................................ 5
The Death of Osama bin Laden................................................................................................. 6
Attack on Pakistan’s Mehran Naval Station .............................................................................. 8
Torture and Killing of Journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad ........................................................... 9
Partial Suspension of U.S. Security Assistance......................................................................... 9
Persistent Furor Over UAV Strikes.......................................................................................... 10
The ISI and Bilateral Intelligence Cooperation ............................................................................. 11
Administration Assessments and Bilateral Diplomacy.................................................................. 13
Afghanistan-Pakistan Policy Review II................................................................................... 13
Administration Assessments and FY2011 Certification.......................................................... 13
Recent Bilateral Diplomacy..................................................................................................... 16
Pakistan and the Afghan Insurgency.............................................................................................. 18
Persistent Turmoil in Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations ............................................................ 18
Haqqani Network Attacks and U.S. Frustrations..................................................................... 20
A Haqqani Role in Afghan Reconciliation? ............................................................................ 22
Pakistan and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan....................................... 23
U.S./NATO Ground Lines of Communication ........................................................................ 24
Indigenous Islamist Militancy and Pakistani Military Operations................................................. 24
Pakistan, Terrorism, and U.S. Nationals ........................................................................................ 26
An Increasing Pakistani Turn to China .......................................................................................... 27
Pakistan-India Relations ................................................................................................................ 29
Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Security ................................................................................. 30
Deteriorated Economic Circumstances.......................................................................................... 31
Domestic Political Instability......................................................................................................... 32
Human Rights Issues ..................................................................................................................... 34
U.S. Assistance .............................................................................................................................. 35
Figures
Figure 1. Map of Pakistan................................................................................................................ 7
Figure 2. District Map of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formally North West Frontier)
Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas .................................................................... 15
Tables
Table 1. Direct Overt U.S. Aid Appropriations and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan,
FY2002-FY2012......................................................................................................................... 38
Contacts
Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 39
Congressional Research Service
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Overview
A stable, democratic, prosperous Pakistan actively combating religious militancy is considered
vital to U.S. interests. U.S. concerns regarding Pakistan include regional and global terrorism;
efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan; nuclear weapons proliferation; the Kashmir problem
and Pakistan-India tensions; democratization and human rights protection; and economic
development. Pakistan has been praised by U.S. leaders for its post-2001 cooperation with U.S.-
led counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts, although long-held doubts about Islamabad’s
commitment to some core U.S. interests are dramatically deeper in 2011. A mixed record on
battling Islamist extremism includes ongoing apparent tolerance of Afghan insurgents and anti-
India militants operating from its territory.
May 2011 revelations that Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden (OBL) had found apparently
years-long refuge inside Pakistan has led to intensive U.S. government scrutiny of the now deeply
troubled bilateral relationship. In September, the top U.S. military officer issued unprecedentedly
strong and public accusations that Pakistan was providing support to Afghan insurgents who
attack U.S. interests, adding to already fraught relations. Anti-American sentiments and
xenophobic conspiracy theories remain rife among ordinary Pakistanis. Pakistan’s troubled
economic conditions and precarious political setting combine with perilous security
circumstances and a history of difficult relations with neighbors to present serious challenges to
U.S. decision makers.
After more than ten years of close U.S. engagement with Pakistan following the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, the answers to several key questions related to U.S. interests in the bilateral relationship
remain unclear and incomplete, at best:
• To what extent is Pakistan genuinely committed to U.S. goals of combating
militancy, stabilizing Afghanistan, and establishing an inclusive post-conflict
government in Kabul?
• What leverage does the United States have to influence Pakistani policies?
• Is a major adjustment of current U.S. policies toward Pakistan needed given the
trajectory of bilateral relations and in regional dynamics? What would be the
potential risks and rewards of such a shift?
• Are U.S. foreign assistance programs in Pakistan making sufficient progress
toward realizing their stated goals?
• Will Pakistan persist in distinguishing among Islamist militant and terrorist
groups, maintaining links to some in the pursuit of perceived national interests?
• Will the Pakistani and Indian governments find ways to substantively reduce
levels of tension and the potential for open conflict between them?
• Are Pakistan’s nuclear materials and technologies prone to leakage?
• Will Islamabad’s politicians and civilian institutions be able to wrest meaningful
control over foreign and national security policies from the country’s historically
dominant security services?
Islamist extremism and militancy in Pakistan is a central U.S. foreign policy concern. Its arguably
growing influence hinders progress toward key U.S. goals, including the defeat of Al Qaeda and
Congressional Research Service
1
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
other anti-U.S. terrorist groups, Afghan stabilization, and resolution of the historic Pakistan-India
rivalry that threatens the entire region’s stability and that has a nuclear dimension. Long-standing
worries that American citizens have been recruited and employed in Islamist terrorism by
Pakistan-based elements have become more acute. Upon the May 1, 2011, death of Osama bin
Laden in a covert U.S. military operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, many in Congress
began to more forcefully question the effectiveness of current U.S. policy. Some openly called for
the curtailment or significant reduction of U.S. foreign assistance to Pakistan.1
Despite numerous and serious problems in the bilateral relationship, the Obama Administration
continues to view continued close engagement with Islamabad as being necessary in pursuit of
key U.S. national interests. Following a surprise, one-day visit to Islamabad in May, Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton told a Senate panel that her “very candid discussions” with Pakistani leaders
conveyed to them a U.S. expectation that they “take concrete actions on the goals we share,” and
that the United States “will never tolerate a safe haven for those who kill Americans”:
We’re going to continue making clear to them our expectations, we’re going to continue to
try to work with them across the entire political spectrum, we’re going to demand more from
them, but we are not going to expect any miracles overnight. This is a long-term, frustrating,
frankly, sometimes very outraging kind of experience ... and yet, I don’t see any alternative if
you look at vital American national interests.2
In his June announcement of a U.S. military drawdown from Afghanistan in 2014, President
Barack Obama said the United States “will continue to press Pakistan to expand its participation
in securing a more peaceful future for this war-torn region” and “will insist that it keep its
commitments” to neutralize terrorist safe havens in its territory. In August, Secretary of Defense
Leon Panetta openly acknowledged the complicating factors of Pakistan’s ties to anti-Afghan and
anti-India terrorist groups, but still insisted that the United States “has no choice but to maintain a
relationship with Pakistan.”3 Many, if not most, independent observers concur that continued
engagement with Pakistan is the only realistic option for the United States, although some high-
visibility analysts counsel taking an increasingly confrontational posture toward Islamabad.4
As part of the Administration’s strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan, its Pakistan policy has
included a tripling of nonmilitary aid to improve the lives of the Pakistani people, as well as the
conditioning of U.S. military aid to Islamabad on that government’s progress in combating
1 “Congress Turns Against Pakistan,” Politico, May 3, 2011. On May 3, 2011, H.R. 1699, the Pakistan Foreign Aid
Accountability Act, was introduced in the House. The act would prohibit future foreign assistance to Pakistan unless
the Secretary of State certifies that the Pakistani government was not complicit in hiding OBL.
2 “Senate Foreign Relations Committee Holds Hearing on Goals and Progress in Afghansitan and Pakistan,” CQ
Transcriptions, June 23, 2011.
3 White House transcript at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/22/remarks-president-way-forward-
afghanistan; “We Must Keep Pakistan Ties: Panetta,” Agence France Presse, August 16, 2011.
4 Christophe Jafferelot, “What Engagement With Pakistan Can—and Can’t—Do,” Foreign Affairs (online), October
12, 2011. An example of the harder-line perspective comes from former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay
Khalilzad, who contends that if U.S. inducements to gain Pakistani cooperation continue to prove insufficient,
Washington should curtail military aid, exert financial and diplomatic pressure, and ramp up its own military operations
against Pakistan-based insurgents. If Pakistani intransigence persists, he urges the United States to maintain a robust
security presence in Afghanistan and consider increasing ties with India as part of a “containment regime” against
Pakistan, channeling future assistance in ways that empower Pakistan’s civil society. With September revelations of
apparent ISI involvement in attacks on U.S. interests in Afghanistan, Khalilzad’s views only hardened (Zalmay
Khalilzad, “How to Get Pakistan to Break With Islamic Militants” (op-ed), Washington Post, June 30, 2011; “Our
Deceitful ‘Friends’” (op-ed), Newsweek, October 3, 2011)).
Congressional Research Service
2
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
militancy and in further fostering democratic institutions. However, in July, the Administration
suspended up to $800 million in planned security assistance to Pakistan and appears to be more
rigorously evaluating Pakistan’s cooperation and progress before releasing further aid.
Meanwhile, U.S. congressional committees have in 2011 voted for more stringent conditions on
future assistance to Pakistan, and some Members have called for a significant or even total
curtailment of aid. Congress appropriated more than $2.4 billion in direct aid for Pakistan in
FY2011, placing it among the world’s leading recipients of U.S. foreign assistance.
Developments in 2011 have for many analysts only validated a preexisting view that Pakistani
behavior is unlikely to change given the long-held geostrategic perspectives of decision makers
there. If true, this means Pakistan will continue to tolerate safe havens for “friendly” militant
groups regardless of U.S. aid levels or more overt threats.5 By many accounts, Pakistan’s
apparently schizophrenic foreign policy behavior is a direct outcome of the Pakistan military’s
perceived strategic interests. This leads some analysts to encourage full-throated U.S. support for
Pakistan’s civilian authorities as the only viable means of reducing conflict both inside Pakistan
and between Pakistan and its neighbors. The current U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron
Munter, is among those who has in the past insisted that Pakistan requires a strong civilian
government and that common U.S.-Pakistan successes can be achieved only “with a strong
partner in Pakistan’s democratically elected government.”6
Still, there are few signs that Pakistan’s current civilian leaders are willing and able to seriously
address the outcomes of their country’s security policies and move them in the direction of
moderation. Even in internal discussions these leaders continue to shirk responsibility for
increased rates of extremism there, and they continue to place the bulk of blame on the United
States.7 This perspective—apparently widespread among the Pakistani public, as well—arguably
omits enthusiastic official Pakistani participation in supporting Islamist militancy in the region
(including the provision of vital support to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime throughout most of the
1990s). By nearly all accounts, this support continues, albeit selectively, to date.
President Obama’s decision to travel to India in November 2010 without any stops in Pakistan
created anxiety among Pakistani officials who see signs of a “pro-India” tilt in Washington
destabilizing for the region. By refraining from direct engagement in the Kashmir dispute,
moving forward with U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation, and seeming to sympathize with New
Delhi’s perspective on the root sources of regional terrorism, the Administration’s current India
policies may continue to make difficult any effective winning of hearts and minds in Pakistan.
Moreover, Afghanistan’s October 2011 choice to establish closer and more overt ties with India,
Pakistan’s primary rival, is grist for those figures—most especially within Pakistan’s security
institutions—who argue that Pakistan increasingly is under threat of strategic encirclement by
external forces that seek to weaken and perhaps dismember the country.
5 Timothy Hoyt, “Pakistan, an Ally By Any Other Name,” Proceedings, July 2011; “Pakistan Unlikely to Help the US
in War,” Associated Press, September 23, 2011.
6 “Sen. John Kerry Holds a Hearing on the Nomination of Cameron Munter to be Ambassador to Pakistan,” CQ
Transcriptions, September 23, 2010.
7 For example, in a speech at Pakistan’s July 2011 “National Seminar on De-Radicalization,” Prime Minister Gilani
mentioned the United States only a single time, when finding the “genesis” of his country’s “security paradigm” in the
“traumatic events of the U.S.-led Afghan jihad” and in the “inept post-cold war handling of Afghanistan by the West”
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs transcript, July 6, 2011).
Congressional Research Service
3
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Within this geopolitical context, U.S.-Pakistan relations have become far more antagonistic in
2011. Although put on the defensive and subject to unusual domestic criticism since OBL’s death,
a militant raid on a major Pakistani naval base, and other developments, Pakistan’s military
remains the locus of power in the country, particularly with regard to the setting of foreign and
national security policies. The wave of Pakistani public anger at the OBL raid reached even to the
top levels of the military, where the sense of shock and betrayal was reported to be acute.
The Pakistan Army’s 11 corps commanders may have since become unified in believing that
cooperation with the United States is a net liability for their institution, if not for the country
itself, and Gen. Kayani’s authority could potentially be undermined if he does not maintain a
tougher line with Washington.8 As such, many observers are unsurprised that Pakistan’s military
has remain largely unmoved by U.S. demands for more energetic counterterrorism action. Some
believe the unannounced mid-October visit to Islamabad (and Kabul) of a high-level U.S.
delegation led by Secretary Clinton may have been an effort by the Obama Administration to
present a united front in conveying to Pakistani leaders a continued willingness to support them
along with a maximally stern message that Afghan insurgents finding haven in western Pakistan
must be neutralized.9
Major Developments in 2011
High-Profile Political Assassinations
On January 4, Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, was assassinated when a member
of his own security team shot him 26 times in broad daylight while other bodyguards looked on.
A senior figure in the national coalition-leading Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Taseer was among
the country’s most liberal politicians, and he had incurred the wrath of Islamists and other
conservatives with vocal criticisms of the country’s controversial blasphemy laws. His killer,
Malik Mumtaz Qadri, has since been lauded as a hero by significant sections of Pakistani society,
and numerous observers were disturbed by signs that even leaders of the country’s majority
Barelvi Muslim sect, usually considered to hold moderate interpretations of Islam, were vocal
supporters of the assassin. Taseer’s assassination, strongly condemned by Secretary Clinton, was
viewed as a major blow to liberal forces in Pakistan. On October 1, an anti-terrorism court
sentenced Qadri to death for the killing. The sentence elicited backlash from Qadri’s sympathizers
and was subsequently stayed by the Lahore High Court.10
Meanwhile, on March 2, gunmen ambushed the car of Minorities Minister Shabaz Bhatti—the
federal cabinet’s only Christian member—and shot him to death. Bhatti had long campaigned for
tolerance toward Pakistan’s religious minorities and had, like Gov. Taseer, openly called for
reform of the blasphemy laws. His killers left pamphlets at the scene warning against such
changes. Secretary Clinton expressed being “shocked and outraged” by Bhatti’s killing, calling it
“an attack on the values of tolerance and respect for people of all faiths and backgrounds
8 “In Pakistan, Pro-American Sentiment is Rare,” Washington Post, June 23, 2011; “Pakistan’s Chief of Army Fights to
Keep His Job,” New York Times, June 15, 2011.
9 “Clinton Issues Blunt Warning to Pakistan,” New York Times, October 20, 2011.
10 In addition to protest rallies, dozens of angry lawyers ransacked the courtroom of the trial judge, whose safety is now
in question (“Backlash for Pakistan Judge Who Convicted Assassin,” Agence France Presse, October 4, 2011).
Congressional Research Service
4
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
championed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father.”11 Prime Minister Yousef
Raza Gilani was the only senior government official to attend Bhatti’s funeral. President Zardari
addressed the two assassinations with an English-language op-ed in which he contended that, “A
small but increasingly belligerent minority is intent on undoing the very principles of tolerance
upon which [Pakistan] was founded.”12 Despite such claims, the Taseer and Bhatti assassinations
and subsequent events were widely seen as evidence that Islamist radicalism is increasing in
Pakistan, especially given what many saw as corresponding evidence that the country’s more
liberal- and secular-minded elite were being cowed into relative silence.
The Raymond Davis Affair
On January 27, Raymond Davis, an American working at the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, shot and
killed two men who approached his vehicle in urban traffic. Davis contends he acted in self-
defense when the men tried to rob him at gunpoint. However, Pakistani authorities accused Davis
of murder and a court barred the government from releasing him despite insistence from top U.S.
officials that diplomatic immunity shielded him from prosecution. President Barack Obama
described Davis as being “our diplomat.”13 Some reports suggested that the two Pakistani men
killed were intelligence operatives tasked with tracking Davis; other reports indicated that the
men were common armed robbers who had committed other crimes earlier that day.14 The U.S.
Consulate at first described Davis as “technical and administrative staff,” but provided no details
of his duties. Only more than three weeks after the incident did the U.S. government admit that
Davis, a former Special Forces soldier, was in fact a CIA contractor and member of a covert team
that was tracking militant groups inside Pakistan.
The controversy around Davis’s legal status confounded Pakistani leaders, who privately
recognized the requirements of international conventions while also having to face increasingly
virulent public anger. Accusations of buck-passing led to open rhetorical clashes between federal
coalition-leading PPP members and opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) figures
whose party dominates the Punjab provincial government in Lahore.
The controversy led some in Congress to openly suggest that U.S. assistance to Pakistan might be
reduced or curtailed if the case was not resolved in a satisfactory manner.15 The U.S. government
postponed trilateral talks with Pakistan and Afghanistan scheduled for February in response to the
Davis dispute. In mid-February, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Kerry
traveled to Islamabad in an effort to reduce escalating tensions, taking the opportunity to express
the “deepest sorrow” felt by top U.S. leaders at the loss of life.16 Also around this time, the
Pakistani Prime Minister raised the idea that diyat, or “blood money,” could provide all parties
11 See the U.S. Embassy’s March 2, 2011, release at http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-11030205.html.
12 Asif Ali Zardari, “In Pakistan, Standing Up to Extremists” (op-ed), Washington Post, March 6, 2011.
13 “Press Conference by the President,” White House transcript, February 15, 2011.
14 “U.S., Pakistan at Odds Over Fatal Shooting,” Washington Post, February 10, 2011; “Did Ray Davis Shoot Two
Pakistani Agents?,” ABC News (online), February 9, 2011.
15 H.Res. 145 called for a “freeze” on all monetary assistance to Pakistan until such time Davis was released (the
resolution did not emerge from committee).
16 See the U.S. Embassy’s February 16, 2011, release at http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-110216004.html.
Congressional Research Service
5
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
with a face-saving resolution. This Koranic concept allows murder cases to be settled if the
victims’ families forgive the accused and agree to financial compensation.17
On February 23, senior U.S. and Pakistani military officers held a daylong meeting in Oman.
Although scheduled months before, the session’s central aim was believed by many to be
resolution of the Davis affair, and the CIA soon after opened direct negotiations with the ISI in an
effort to secure Davis’s release. Yet the case dragged on without resolution into mid-March, with
the Islamabad government failing to instruct the Lahore court on Davis’s status, and that court
moving ahead with plans for a murder trial in lieu of such clarification. Then, on March 16, after
more weeks of closed-door negotiations, political pressure by Pakistani officials on the courts,
and, finally, a pledge of $2.3 million in “blood money” for the victims’ families, Davis was freed
and flown out of the country. Top U.S. officials denied there had been any quid pro quo
arrangement related to Davis’s release or that the United States had provided the financial
compensation. The U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan announced that the U.S. Justice Department
would investigate the shootings.18 Still, the outcome left many Pakistanis feeling that their
judicial system had been seriously manipulated, in large part by the U.S. government.
The Death of Osama bin Laden19
On May 1, Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was located and killed in the mid-sized Pakistani
city of Abbottabad, a military cantonment in the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in a
compound one-half mile from the country’s premier military academy, just 35 miles north of the
capital of Islamabad (see Figure 1). The location and circumstances of OBL’s death exacerbated
Washington’s long-held doubts about Pakistan’s commitment to ostensibly shared goals of
defeating religious extremism, and brought calls to curtail U.S. assistance to Pakistan. The news
of OBL’s whereabouts led to immediate questioning of Pakistan’s role and potential complicity in
his refuge. President Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, told reporters it was
“inconceivable that Osama bin Laden did not have a support system” in Pakistan.20
For a wide array of observers, the outcome of the years-long hunt for OBL left only two realistic
conclusions: either Pakistani officials were at some level complicit in hiding the fugitive, or the
country’s military and intelligence services were grossly incompetent in their search for top Al
Qaeda leaders. In either case, after many years of claims by senior Pakistani officials—both
civilian and military—that most-wanted extremist figures were finding no refuge in their country,
Pakistan’s credibility suffered a serious blow.21
17 Diyat is a tenet of Islamic law sanctioned by Pakistani jurisprudence and reportedly used in at least half of homicide
cases there (“‘Blood Money’ Tradition Might Help Resolve U.S.-Pakistani Row,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2011).
18 To date, it is unclear if such an investigation is underway (“Pakistan Seeks an Update on Raymond Davis,”
Washington Post (online), October 5, 2011).
19 For broader discussion, see CRS Report R41809, Osama bin Laden’s Death: Implications and Considerations,
coordinated by John Rollins.
20 Quoted in “Osama Bin Laden Killed in U.S. Raid, Buried at Sea,” Washington Post, May 2, 2011.
21 A listing of some of the oftentimes categorical, high-profile Pakistani denials about OBL specifically are in “Osama
bin Who?,” Foreign Policy (online), May 2, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
6
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Figure 1. Map of Pakistan
Source: Map Resources. Adapted by CRS.
Pakistan’s military and intelligence services came under rare domestic criticism for being unable
to detect and intercept a foreign military raid deep inside Pakistani territory, and for ostensible
incompetence in detecting the presence there of the world’s most-wanted terrorist. Army Chief
Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani warned that Pakistan would not tolerate any future incursions. The
security agencies may have sought to deflect criticism by emphasizing a narrative in which the
country’s sovereignty had been grossly violated and so focusing the people’s ire on external
actors.22 There were signs that this tack was at least partially effective: Parliament subsequently
22 While Army Chief Kayani admitted to intelligence “shortcomings,” a May 5 release stated that any similar
“violations of the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with
the United States,” and also warned Indian leaders against undertaking any similar operations (see
(continued...)
Congressional Research Service
7
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
issued a strong condemnation of the U.S. raid and again called for a halt to U.S.-launched drone
strikes in western Pakistan. It also threatened to close land lines of communication through
Pakistan that are vital to supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, public
demonstrations took a bellicose, anti-American cast.
The developments fueled bilateral distrust and acrimony unseen in the post-2001 period. Capitol
Hill became the site of much pointed questioning of the wisdom of continued engagement with a
national government that may at some levels have knowledge of OBL’s whereabouts; figures
from both major parties expressed disbelief at Pakistan’s allegations of ignorance and called for
greater oversight and accountability for future U.S. assistance to Pakistan. Still, senior Members
tended to take a more measured view, with the House Speaker voicing the opinion that
circumstances called for “more engagement [with Pakistan], not less.”23 Such sentiments tracked
well with the view of many independent observers that—despite ample reasons for
discouragement and distrust—the United States has had no good options other than continuing to
engage Pakistan in what many analysts have described as “a bad marriage.”
President Obama and other top U.S. officials maintained a generally positive posture toward
Pakistan in the weeks following the Abbottabad raid, while also noting that serious questions had
arisen over the circumstances of OBL’s refuge. The U.S. government reportedly has no
conclusive evidence indicating that official Pakistan was aware of bin Laden’s whereabouts.
Privately, senior Administration officials reportedly became divided over the future of the
bilateral relationship, with some at an apparent loss for patience and advocating strong reprisals
for perceived Pakistani intransigence. Senator Kerry—at the time the senior-most U.S. official to
visit Pakistan after OBL’s death—told an interviewer, “In the Congress, this is a make-or-break
moment” for aid to Pakistan, and said he would tell Pakistani leaders there needed to be “a real
demonstration of commitment” to fighting terrorist groups in coming months.24
Attack on Pakistan’s Mehran Naval Station
On May 22, a team of heavily armed militants penetrated security barriers and stormed Pakistan’s
premier naval base, the Mehran Naval Station near Karachi. Ten security personnel and four
militants were killed in the ensuing 16-hour-long gun battle; two other militants are believed to
have escaped before Pakistani commandos regained control of the base. The militants were able
to destroy two U.S.-supplied P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft in their hangar.
The attack, which the Pakistani Taliban claimed was taken in revenge for the killing of bin Laden,
was the second major embarrassment of the month for the beleaguered Pakistani military, which
seemed at a loss to explain how such a damaging breach could occur. The ability of a handful of
attackers to wreak such havoc left the security services open to scathing criticism from the
generally pro-military Pakistani media, and also brought into question the safety and security of
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and materials.25 Suspicions quickly arose that the base’s attackers had
(...continued)
http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&date=2011/5/5).
23 Quoted in “Boehner: US Should Not Back Away From Pakistan,” Associated Press, May 3, 2011.
24 Quoted in “As Rift Deepens, Kerry Has a Warning for Pakistan,” New York Times, May 15, 2011.
25 “Pakistan Military Faces New Questions After Raid,” New York Times, May 24, 2011; “Pakistan Media Ridicules
Military After Attack,” Reuters, May 24, 2011. The growth of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and infrastructure only
increases the potential threat posed by determined militants (see Shaun Gregory, “Terrorist Tactics in Pakistan Threaten
(continued...)
Congressional Research Service
8
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
inside help, given especially their ability to carefully avoid detection and take effective cover
once inside. Within days a former Navy commando was arrested in connection with the case.
Three navy officers, the base commander among them, are to be court-martialed on charges of
negligence in connection with the attack, an unusual disciplinary action for the Pakistani military
demonstrating the seriousness of the breach.26
Torture and Killing of Journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, is accused of ordering the
torture and murder of investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, who disappeared on May 29
just after penning an article suggesting that the Mehran attack was carried out because the
Pakistan Navy was trying to crack down on Al Qaeda cells that had infiltrated the service.
Shahzad, whose writing had riled the Pakistani establishment repeatedly in the past, reportedly
had received numerous threats from the ISI. In a rare public statement, the ISI denied playing any
role in Shahzad’s fate. A closed government inquiry into the death began in June; unnamed U.S.
officials later said there was sufficient classified intelligence to conclude that senior ISI officials
had directed the brutal attack on Shahzad in an effort to silence critics. Soon after, U.S. Joint
Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen went on record with the claim that Shahzad’s killing “was
sanctioned by the [Pakistani] government.”27
Partial Suspension of U.S. Security Assistance
In late-June testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Clinton
told Senators that U.S. military aid to Pakistan could be slowed “unless and until we see some
steps taken.”28 Two weeks later, the Obama Administration made some significant changes in its
security-related aid policy. According to congressional and State Department sources, from $440
million-$500 million worth of scheduled counterinsurgency training and equipment for Pakistan
was put under suspension due to the recently reduced U.S. military trainer presence there, along
with obstacles to fulfilling other agreements between the two countries. Some of the equipment
cannot be set up or used for training because necessary U.S. personnel are no longer in-country.
In addition, Islamabad’s delays in processing U.S. visa requests led to the suspension of $300
million in planned FY2011 Coalition Support Fund reimbursements. Although the Administration
presented the move as being necessitated by technical factors, observers saw it as a message and
warning to Islamabad that key assistance spigots could close in lieu of improved cooperation.
A Pakistani military spokesman dismissed the development as having no effect on his
organization’s ability to conduct future combat operations, and he repeated the Army Chief’s June
suggestion that more U.S. security assistance be reprogrammed toward development projects in
Pakistan.29 News that the United States would partially suspend military aid became the headline
story in Pakistan, where media coverage was nearly unanimous in identifying the development as
(...continued)
Nuclear Weapons Safety,” CTC Sentinel, June 2011).
26 “Three Pakistani Naval Officers to Be Court Martialed Over Base Attack,” New York Times, August 4, 2011.
27 “U.S. Admiral Ties Pakistan to Killing of Journalist,” New York Times, July 8, 2011.
28 “Senate Foreign Relations Committee Holds Hearing on Goals and Progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” CQ
Transcripts, June 23, 2011.
29 “Pakistan Says It Doesn’t Need US Military Aid,” Christian Science Monitor, July 11, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
9
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
a clear sign that bilateral relations were worsening. In the view of some observers, the
Administration’s decision was more likely to elicit greater resentment than greater cooperation
from Pakistani leaders, and could be taken as validation by ordinary Pakistanis who see the
United States as a fickle and unreliable ally.30
Persistent Furor Over UAV Strikes
Missile strikes in Pakistan reportedly launched by armed American Predator and Reaper
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been a controversial, but arguably effective tactic against
Islamist militants in remote regions of western Pakistan. By one assessment, 118 drone strikes
occurred in 2010 alone, more than during the preceding six years combined. Sixty more strikes
were reported through the first nine months of 2011.31 The accelerated missile strikes in western
Pakistan reportedly have taken a significant toll on Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist
militants, but is also criticized as an extrajudicial measure that kills civilians and may also
contribute to militant recruitment. The Pakistani government regularly issues protests over the
strikes—and the perception that they violate Pakistani sovereignty fuels considerable anti-
American sentiment among the Pakistani public—but most observers believe official Pakistan has
tacitly allowed the strikes and at times provided intelligence for them.
Only one day after Raymond Davis’s March release, a reported U.S.-launched missile strike in
North Waziristan killed 44 people. While U.S. officials suggested that militants were targeted,
Pakistani officials said an open-air jirga (tribal council) of peaceful tribal leaders had been hit by
four missiles in what the Foreign Ministry called “a flagrant violation of all humanitarian rules
and norms.” Even more unusual was a vehement statement from Gen. Kayani himself, which said
that “peaceful citizens” had been “carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard for
human life.”32 In what appeared to some to be a high-visibility, nonverbal U.S. response to
Pakistani complaints, reported U.S.-launched missile strikes killed six alleged Afghan militants in
South Waziristan only two days later. In a further expression of anger, Islamabad announced that
it would not participate in upcoming scheduled tripartite talks with the United States and
Afghanistan. Imran Khan, the populist leader of a small opposition party, subsequently organized
what was characterized as an anti-drone strike “sit in” that shut down a major highway near
Peshawar used to ferry supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan. Following the death of OBL and
renewed Pakistan rancor over reported drone strikes, press reports suggested the U.S. government
ramped up pressure with this tactic—at least three strikes reportedly were launched in the ten
days following OBL’s death—perhaps in an effort to take advantage of confusion within militant
ranks.
Top Obama Administration figures reportedly differ on the wisdom of continuing UAV strikes in
Pakistan, with some State Department and Pentagon figures urging the CIA to reduce the pace of
its strikes. While there is said to be widespread agreement on the tactical effectiveness of UAV
attacks, proponents of more judicious use of the tactic reportedly worry that an intense pace of
strikes is aggravating an already troubled relationship with Pakistan and may risk destabilizing
that country.33 Despite the apparent killing of many hundreds of militants and dozens of their
30 “In Pakistan, Many Say Aid ‘Snub’ Dims US Sway,” Associated Press, July 11, 2011.
31 See http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones.
32 ISPR’s March 17, 2011, release at http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&date=2011/3/17.
33 “Drone Attacks Split U.S. Officials,” Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
10
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
commanders, violence in western Pakistan has hardly subsided as a result of missile strikes. Yet,
in present circumstances, many commentators believe the U.S. government may have no better
options than to continue employing the tactic. Some analysts suggest that increasing transparency
and boosting Islamabad’s sense of partnership in UAV strikes could dampen Pakistani
opposition.34
The ISI and Bilateral Intelligence Cooperation
Close U.S. links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence date back to the 1980s, when
American and Pakistani intelligence officers oversaw cooperative efforts to train and supply
Afghan “freedom fighters” who were battling the Soviet Army. Yet mutual mistrust has been
ever-present and, in 2008, long-standing doubts about the activities and aims of the ISI
compounded. U.S. officials repeatedly have fingered the ISI for actively supporting Afghan
insurgents with money, supplies, and planning guidance. There appears to be ongoing conviction
among U.S. officials that sanctuaries in Pakistan have allowed Afghan militants to sustain their
insurgency and that elements of the ISI continue to support them. The ISI is also regularly linked
to anti-India terrorist groups, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the November 2008
attack on Mumbai in which some 165 people were killed, six Americans among them. As
discussed below, recent attention has focused on ISI links with the Pakistan-based Haqqani
Network of Afghan insurgents. Pakistani officials regularly provide assurances that no elements
of the ISI are cooperating with militants or extremists. However, to many independent observers,
Pakistan’s security services increasingly appear to be penetrated by Islamist extremists.35
Even before the Raymond Davis episode began, reports indicated that CIA-ISI relations were at a
nadir, with American officials frustrated at the lack of expanded Pakistani military operations and
at signs that elements within the ISI continue to provide backing to certain militant groups. The
Davis affair sharpened Pakistani attention to—and acrimony toward—the presence of U.S.
security officials and contractors in Pakistan. Revelation of Davis’s status as a CIA contractor led
the ISI to demand an accounting of all such operatives working in Pakistan, but intelligence
cooperation may have been frozen immediately upon the late January shooting. Just weeks before
the OBL raid, Islamabad had ordered more than two dozen U.S. Special Forces military trainers
to leave the country in an apparent response to the Davis case. The trainers had been working to
improve the capabilities of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps.36
In April, the ISI Chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, was in Virginia to meet with his counterpart,
then-CIA Director Leon Panetta. Officially, the talks were said to have been productive, with the
CIA-ISI relationship remaining “on solid footing.” However, many reports described Pasha as
having made significant demands for greater control over covert U.S. action in his country, as
well as calls for a steep reduction in the number of CIA operatives and Special Forces soldiers
34 Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “Washington’s Phantom War,” Foreign Affairs, July 2011. See also “The
Targeted Killings Debate,” Council on Foreign Relations Expert Roundup, June 8, 2011.
35 “Infiltrators Worry Pakistani Military,” Washington Post, May 28, 2011. In June, a Pakistani brigadier general was
arrested and four majors questioned due to their links with the Hizb-ul-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), a nonviolent, but
outlawed Islamist group that seeks the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. The general, whose brother may be a
senior intelligence officer, is the most senior officer to face such allegations since 1995 (“Arrest of Pakistani Officer
Revives Fears of Extremism Within Military,” CNN.com, June 22, 2011).
36 “U.S.-Pakistan Intelligence Operations Frozen Since January,” Reuters, April 9, 2011; “As Ties Frayed, Pakistan
Ousted Some U.S. Forces,” Washington Post, May 21, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
11
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
working in Pakistan, and a halt to drone strikes there. The demand to remove hundreds of
American personnel was said to have come from Army Chief Kayani himself. While U.S.
officials insisted there was no plan to end or restrict the CIA-run drone program, and denied that
the CIA had been asked to withdraw any employees from Pakistan, the agency reportedly did
agree to be more open with Pakistani authorities about such employees and their activities, as
well as more cooperative when planning drone strikes.37
The circumstances of OBL’s death brought renewed and intensive focus on purported ISI links
with Islamist extremism. Following the May 1 raid, Pakistan sought to crack down on its own
citizens who were found to be working with the CIA.38 Islamabad also asked for further
reductions in the U.S. military footprint and moved to close three joint “intelligence fusion cells”
only recently established in Quetta and Peshawar. The top U.S. military officer called the cuts
“very significant.”39 The Obama Administration reportedly pressed Pakistan to reveal the
identities of senior ISI operatives as part of the investigation into how OBL was able to find
refuge inside Pakistan for five years.40 Pressure was increased to allow American investigators
access to bin Laden’s three widows in Pakistani custody. Such access was subsequently granted.
One week after OBL’s death, a Pakistani newspaper seen as close to the country’s military and
intelligence services published the purported name of the CIA’s Islamabad station chief. This was
the second time in six months that the top covert American operative in Pakistan had been
publically named, and U.S. officials reportedly believe such disclosures were being made
deliberately by the ISI to demonstrate its leverage and to express anger at U.S. policies.41
After the OBL raid, the ISI leadership was confronted more frequently—and more publically—
with U.S. evidence of collusion between Pakistani officials and Afghan insurgents. Such evidence
notably included instances in which the CIA alerted Islamabad about the existence of two bomb-
making facilities in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), only to have
Pakistani army units find the sites abandoned by the time they arrived. This led U.S. officials to
assume that the targets had been tipped off about upcoming raids, a charge called “totally false
and malicious” by the Pakistani military, which declared that some of the intelligence provided
“proved to be incorrect.” Still, U.S. officials repeated the accusations after militants fled two
other bomb-making facilities; these officials reportedly believed that Pakistan’s insistence on
gaining permission from local tribal elders before entering the area allowed militants to escape.42
With Adm. Mullen’s unprecedented September statements linking the ISI to Haqqani Network
attacks on U.S. targets in Afghanistan (see the “Haqqani Network Attacks and U.S. Frustrations”
section below), questioning of CIA-ISI cooperation further intensified. Administration officials
37 “Pakistani Spy Chief Presses CIA for Concessions,” Reuters, April 11, 2011; “Pakistan Tells U.S. It Must Sharply
Cut C.I.A. Activities,” New York Times, April 12, 2011; “CIA, Pakistan Working to Repair Widening Rift in
Relationship,” Washington Post, April 13, 2011.
38 A Pakistani army major who lived in a home adjacent to OBL’s Abbottabad compound reportedly was arrested on
suspicion that he had been recruited by U.S. intelligence. By mid-June some three dozen Pakistani citizens had
apparently been detained nationwide for their suspected cooperation with the CIA (“Arrest Indicates Pakistan Leaders
Face Rising Pressure to Curb U.S. Role,” Washington Post, June 15, 2011).
39 “Pakistan Shuts Down U.S. ‘Intelligence Fusion’ Cells,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2011; “Mullen: US Training
Cuts in Pakistan Significant,” Associated Press, June 1, 2011.
40 “Probing Link to Bin Laden, U.S. Tells Pakistan to Name Agents,” New York Times, May 7, 2011.
41 “Pakistanis Disclose Name of CIA Operative,” Washington Post, May 9, 2011.
42 “C.I.A. Director Warns Pakistan on Collusion With Militants,” New York Times, June 12, 2011, ISPR press release,
June 17, 2011; “Pakistan Still Tipping Off Militants, U.S. Officials Say,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
12
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
reportedly have refused to sign a “memorandum of understanding” with Islamabad that would set
a ceiling on the number of U.S. intelligence operatives allowed in the country and require
Washington to notify Islamabad ahead of drone strikes, among other provisions. The two
governments reportedly agreed on the number of U.S. forces that would be allowed in Pakistan;
the maximum of 150 is a significant cut from previous levels, and the number of Special Forces
trainers reportedly has been slashed from some 140 to less than 10.43
Concurrent with interagency discord, effective intelligence cooperation has continued. Just days
after the OBL raid, a Yemeni national described as a “senior” or “midlevel” Al Qaeda operative
was arrested in Karachi with the help of U.S.-provided intelligence. Mohammed Ali Qasim Yaqub
reportedly had been a key courier between Al Qaeda’s top leaders, and his capture was seen as a
good-faith Pakistani effort to mend relations with Washington. In another apparent effort to
rebuild confidence, Pakistan pledged in June to grant more than three dozen visas to CIA officers.
Most-wanted terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri was reported killed in an early June drone strike in South
Waziristan, and the new Al Qaeda chief’s deputy and operational commander, Libyan explosives
expert Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, was reported killed in an August drone strike in North Waziristan
(successes in targeting militants in the FATA with unmanned drones likely come with intelligence
from Pakistan). In early September, Pakistan announced having arrested three allegedly senior Al
Qaeda operatives near Quetta with help from technical assistance provided by the CIA.
Administration Assessments and Bilateral
Diplomacy
Afghanistan-Pakistan Policy Review II
The unclassified version of the Administration’s annual Afghanistan-Pakistan policy, released in
December 2010, conveyed an unchanged overarching goal (disrupting, dismantling, and defeating
Al Qaeda in the region) and claimed notable gains, especially what it called unprecedented
pressure on Al Qaeda in Pakistan, resulting in its weakening. The review called for “greater
cooperation with Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan” and acknowledged that effective
development strategies are required to complement military means. While recognizing ongoing
problems, it noted “significant progress” on combating Al Qaeda in Pakistan and “significant
activity” by the Pakistani military to shut down sanctuaries used by Islamist militants in the
border region. Senior Pentagon officials lauded what they called substantial improvement in the
U.S.-Pakistan relationship during 2010, and a daily and measurable improvement in coordination
of counterterrorism efforts.44
Administration Assessments and FY2011 Certification
The Administration’s biannual March 2011 assessment of Afghanistan and Pakistan policy
determined that most indicators and metrics against key U.S. objectives had remained static
during the reporting period (the latter half of 2010), notably excepting “significant progress” in
43 “US, Pakistan Agree to Limit Troops,” Associated Press, September 20, 2011.
44 White House press release and Pentagon transcript, December 16, 2010.
Congressional Research Service
13
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
combating Al Qaeda in the region. On counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts, it noted improved
cooperation both within the Pakistani armed forces and between those forces and NATO, but
found that the last quarter of 2010 “saw no progress on effectively executing the COIN cycle in
KPk [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province] and the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas]” (see
Figure 2). It found that the Pakistan military was in early 2011 undertaking major clearing
operations in the Bajaur agency for the third time in two years, indicating “the inability of the
Pakistan military and government to render cleared areas resistant to insurgent return.” The
assessment was particularly candid on Pakistan’s repeated failures to make progress in the COIN
cycle: “[W]hat remains vexing is the lack of any indication of ‘hold’ and ‘build’ planning or
staging efforts to compliment ongoing clearing operations. As such, there remains no clear path
toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan” [emphasis added].45
In apparent conflict with such problematic U.S. government reporting on Pakistan’s progress was
a March 18, 2011, certification by Secretary Clinton required under Section 203 of the Enhanced
Partnership With Pakistan Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-73). This certification, which allows the release
of security-related FY2011 aid to Pakistan, included the Secretary’s confirmation that Islamabad
was demonstrating “a sustained commitment to and is making significant efforts toward
combating terrorist groups,” had “made progress” on ceasing support to extremist and terrorist
groups, as well as on preventing Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups from operating on Pakistani
territory, and in “dismantling terrorist bases” in the country. In the wake of revelations that Al
Qaeda’s founder was living in plain sight in a Pakistani city, and top U.S. military officials
persistently complaining that Pakistan has failed to take action against the Haqqani network in the
FATA, the certification met with considerable skepticism and appeared to many observers to be
driven primarily by political considerations rather than by ground realities.
The Administration’s September 2011 assessment—covering January-June with a preliminary
assessment of July and August—brought little positive news beyond reporting “significant
successes” against Al Qaeda, a key aspect of the first of several objectives related to Pakistan:
• On enhancing civilian control and stable government in Pakistan, indicators and
metrics “remained static” for the entire reporting period, with political instability
continuing, given the government’s inability to implement economic reforms,
tackle corruption, or develop a coherent plan for improving infrastructure,
especially in the power sector; extremist opposition to blasphemy laws; and
uncertainty about the stability of the national ruling coalition.
• On developing Pakistan’s COIN capabilities, indicators and metrics remained
static through the first quarter of 2011, then began to decline, with “continued
negative trends” into the summer. This was attributed in large degree to the
“Pakistan-directed” decrease in bilateral security cooperation—especially
following the May OBL raid—which “dramatically reduced the U.S. ability to
support Pakistan’s COIN and CT fight,” and a concurrent stalling of Pakistan’s
own COIN efforts. Insurgent elements in western Pakistan were seen to have
“gained momentum” and “even return to many areas previously cleared by the
Pakistani military.” While the Pakistani military did undertake new COIN
operations during this period, the offensives “did not, in the end, alter the overall
balance between militants and the Pakistan military.”
45 See “Report on Afghanistan and Pakistan, March 2011” at http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/afpak-0311.pdf.
Congressional Research Service
14
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
• On involving the international community in efforts to assist in stabilizing
Pakistan, the indicators and metrics were reported to have remained static, with
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Stand-By Arrangement remaining on
hold since August 2010 and only limited progress in funding the World Bank
Multi-Donor Trust Fund and the U.N. Pakistan Humanitarian Response Plan.46
Figure 2. District Map of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formally North West
Frontier) Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas
Source: Map Resources. Adapted by CRS.
46 White House Report on Afghanistan and Pakistan, September 2011.
Congressional Research Service
15
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Recent Bilateral Diplomacy
President Obama has not traveled to Pakistan since taking office, and the bilateral Strategic
Dialogue engaged by his Administration has not had a formal session since October 2010.
However, high-level interactions, especially among military and intelligence officials, have
continued to be frequent. Secretary Clinton’s surprise one-day visit to Islamabad in late May 2011
was described as being filled with tension, with Clinton, accompanied by Adm. Mullen, asking
her interlocutors to take “decisive steps” against Islamist militants, a request reportedly met
coolly. The senior U.S. officials also received a reported rebuff when they ask that Islamabad
reverse its decision to shut down intelligence sharing centers in western Pakistan. However, in a
sign that efforts at reconciliation were being made, the two governments were said to have
established a new joint intelligence team to pursue most-wanted terrorist suspects in Pakistan.47
In addition to the several destabilizing developments discussed above, U.S.-Pakistan relations
have been negatively affected by two other notable recent episodes. One issue of contention has
been freedom of travel for U.S. diplomats in Pakistan. Incidents in which such diplomats have
been prevented from moving between cities reportedly have amounted to “official harassment”
from a U.S. perspective, but Pakistani officials insist that requiring “No Objection Certificates”
for Americans leaving Islamabad are neither new nor U.S.-specific.48 Another was the July
revelation that two U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin had for many years been working illicitly on
behalf of the ISI in an effort to influence U.S. Kashmir policy.49 Moreover, the August kidnaping
of Warren Weinstein, a 70-year-old American development expert, from his Lahore home alarmed
observers, especially because Weinstein had lived in Pakistan for seven years and appeared to
have been an active friend of Pakistani economic growth. To date, no group has taken
responsibility and no ransom or other demands have been issued; his status remains unknown.
At the ministerial level, the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue appears to have been postponed
indefinitely; formal talks including Secretary Clinton, originally slated for March, have not
occurred. Yet engagement has continued at lower levels:
• The U.S.-Pakistan-Afghanistan Tripartite Commission—established in 2003 to
bring together military commanders for regular discussions on Afghan stability
and border security—met for the 34th time in Islamabad in June.
• In July, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield was in Islamabad for working level
discussions with Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
47 “Clinton Gets Cold Reception,” Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2011; “Angry Pakistan Rejects Appeal From U.S.,”
Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2011; “US-Pakistan Form An Anti-Terror Squad,” Associated Press, June 2, 2011.
48 “American Diplomats in Pakistan Under Pressure,” BBC News, September 8, 2011.
49 The men came under Federal indictment for failure to register as foreign agents. One of the accused remains at large
in Pakistan, but the other, Virginia resident Ghulam Nabi Fai, was arrested for lobbying U.S. lawmakers and funneling
campaign contributions to some in Congress over a ten-year period with at least $4 million in funds provided by the
ISI. Fai, longtime director of the Kashmiri American Council—a Washington-based nonprofit group ostensibly
dedicated to the cause of Kashmir self-determination—admitted receiving funds from the ISI but insisted his group
maintained independence from its viewpoint. The timing of his arrest, coming on the heels of Pakistan’s arrest of a
doctor charged with aiding the CIA operation against Osama bin Laden, led some to conclude that Washington was
sending a message to Islamabad (see “Another Challenge to U.S.-Pakistan Ties,” Council on Foreign Relations
Interview, July 21, 2011).
Congressional Research Service
16
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
• The “trilateral core group” of the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan,
established in May to discuss Afghan reconciliation, met for the fourth time in
Islamabad in August, when U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and
Pakistan (SRAP) Amb. Marc Grossman joined the Afghan deputy foreign
minister and the Pakistani foreign secretary. At a press briefing following the
meeting, Grossman took the opportunity to “highlight the unique role and
important role that Pakistan must play in supporting” the process.50
• In mid-September, U.S. Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs Carlos
Pascal met with Minister of Water and Power Syed Naveed Qamar in Islamabad
as part of the U.S.-Pakistan Energy Dialogue.
• Later in September, Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides hosted Finance
Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh for the fifth meeting of the Economics and
Finance Working Group to discuss the “New Silk Road” initiative for the region.
• The SRAP was in Islamabad in mid-October for meetings with all of Pakistan’s
top leadership. It was his fifth visit to Pakistan since taking the position in 2011.
Secretary Clinton met with her Pakistani counterpart, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, on the
sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in mid-September. Senior State Department
officials commenting afterward provided little detail on the substance of the more than three-
hour-long talks, but did acknowledge that the recent attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul had
“changed the nature of the meeting” and that “there are clearly actions that the Pakistani could
take to go after the Haqqani Network.”51
In mid-October, the Obama Administration made a major show of diplomatic force when
Secretary Clinton led a large, high-level delegation to Islamabad. Accompanied by CIA Director
David Petraeus, new Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, Deputy National Security
Advisor Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, SRAP Grossman, and other senior officials, Clinton sought to
impress upon the entire Pakistani civilian and military leadership that, while the Administration
still seeks to build a strategic relationship with Islamabad, the United States will not tolerate the
continued existence of militant safe havens in western Pakistan and will take action against them
if the Pakistanis do not. The delegation also pressed Pakistani leaders to publically endorse
Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network participation in negotiations on Afghan reconciliation, and
to help in creating a regional architecture that promotes stability and economic integration.52
50 “Transcript of the Joint Press Briefing Following the Trilateral Meeting Between Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the
United States,” Pakistan Press International, August 4, 2011.
51 “Senior State Department Officials Hold a Background Briefing on Secretary Clinton’s Meeting With Pakistani
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar,” CQ Transcriptions, September 18, 2011.
52 “[Clinton] Interview With Nick Schifrin of ABC News,” State Department transcript, October 20, 2011; “Clinton
Issues Blunt Warning to Pakistan,” New York Times, October 20, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
17
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Pakistan and the Afghan Insurgency53
Persistent Turmoil in Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations
It is widely held that success in Afghanistan cannot come without the close engagement and
cooperation of Pakistan, and that the key to stabilizing Afghanistan is to improve the long-
standing animosity between Islamabad and Kabul. Despite some warming of Pakistan-
Afghanistan ties in 2010 and early 2011, Afghan officials still openly accuse Pakistan of aiding
and abetting terrorism inside Afghanistan. Pakistan’s mixed record on battling Islamist extremism
includes an ongoing apparent tolerance of Afghan Taliban elements operating from its territory,
the Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) of Mullah Omar and the Haqqani Network leading among these.
Islamabad is discomfited by signs that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is not long-term and that
the international community may “abandon” the region in ways damaging to Pakistani interests,
as was the case during the 1990s.54 Many analysts saw President Obama’s June 22 announcement
of an impending U.S. military drawdown from Afghanistan as yet another signal to stakeholder
governments and Taliban elements, alike, that the United States was most concerned with an exit
strategy and may not make a long-term commitment to stabilizing the region. New restrictions on
and reductions of U.S. aid to Pakistan only compounds such concerns in Pakistan.
The Islamabad government considers itself to be indispensible to successful Afghan peace talks.
Pakistani leaders are in large part motivated by a desire to deny India significant influence in a
post-conflict Afghanistan. In early 2010, the Afghan Taliban’s top military commander and key
aide to Mullah Omar, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was captured in a joint ISI-CIA operation in
Karachi. By some accounts, Pakistani elements “orchestrated” the Baradar arrest to facilitate talks
with “willing” Taliban commanders and pave the way for reconciliation negotiations. Cynics
contend that the ISI’s motives may simply have been to thwart any anticipated negotiations.
In June 2010, Pakistan launched an effort to broker a reconciliation between the Kabul
government and the Haqqanis. This initiative sparked concerns that Islamabad will seek to exploit
the political situation—both in the region and in Washington—to mold a settlement giving
Pakistan maximal influence in a post-conflict Kabul. In October 2010, NATO facilitated the
secret travel of at least three QST figures and a representative of the Haqqani Network from
Pakistan to Kabul for meetings with senior Afghan government officials. It is unclear whether
Pakistani officials were included in this process; some reports indicated they were not, others
described ISI officials as having participated directly. In another clear indication that Islamabad
has substantive influence over top Afghan insurgents, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan has
suggested that Pakistan is hesitant to allow Taliban leaders to travel to Kabul for reconciliation
talks. He asks that Pakistan support the process by allowing those willing to talk to be given the
53 See also CRS Report RL30588, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, by Kenneth
Katzman.
54 Members of Pakistan’s nongovernmental foreign policy “elite” are reported to maintain that Pakistan’s key objective
is to see a pacific Afghanistan with an inclusive government and a limited Indian presence, even in the area of
economic and social development. From this perspective, only significant power-sharing with Afghan Pashtuns will
ensure a future Kabul government sensitive to Pakistani interests, to some extent leaving Islamabad’s decision makers
“stuck with the Taliban” for the time being, insofar as the group is seen to represent Pashtun influence (see Moeed
Yusuf, Huma Yusuf, and Salman Zaidi, “Pakistan, the United States, and the End Game in Afghanistan: Perceptions of
Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite,” U.S. Institute of Peace, July 25, 2011).
Congressional Research Service
18
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
opportunity to do so. Afghan President Karzai has echoed these complaints, saying insurgent
leaders inside Pakistan are not sufficiently independent of Pakistani control to enter into
negotiations on their own.55
Pakistani leaders insist that Afghan stability is a vital Pakistani interest. Islamabad strongly
endorses current efforts to make peace with the Afghan Taliban and insists that the parameters for
such a process should be set by the Kabul government. In April 2011, Prime Minister Gilani,
Army Chief Kayani, and ISI Director Pasha all traveled to Kabul as part of an effort to upgrade
the Afghanistan-Pakistan Joint Commission established in January and so accelerate the peace
process. American observers were disturbed by reports that Gilani had used the meetings as an
opportunity to wean Kabul away from its strategic partnership with the United States and instead
move closer to Islamabad and seek greater support from China. According to the reports, Gilani
criticized America’s “imperial designs” and contended that ending the Afghan war required Kabul
and Islamabad to take “ownership” of the peace process.56 The new Joint Commission met for the
first time in June, with Gilani and President Karzai expressing their commitment to an “Afghan-
led and Afghan-owned” process. The two sides also produced a 23-point “Islamabad Declaration”
pledging improved and deepened ties in a wide range of issue-areas.57
Expressions of Pakistan-Afghanistan amity again proved fleeting and relations have deteriorated
since. In the summer of 2011, increased incidence of “reverse infiltration” caused friction
between Islamabad and Kabul, especially after more than two dozen Pakistani soldiers were
killed in a June cross-border raid by up to 400 militants from Afghanistan’s Kunar province.
Other episodes involving cross-border attacks on Pakistani territory by formations of hundreds of
militants followed. The persistence of such attacks suggests that insurgent forces believed
defeated in Pakistani operations in the FATA may have simply shifted to havens on the Afghan
side of the Durand Line. Meanwhile, in late June, Afghan officials accused Pakistan of firing
more than 760 rockets into the Kunar, Nangarhar, and Khost provinces over a period of six
weeks, killing at least 60 people, including women and children. Pakistan rejected charges that its
forces had been involved in any cross-border attacks. Some in Afghanistan see the barrages as
part of an orchestrated and official Pakistani effort to “reshape Afghanistan as a Pakistani colony”
after International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops draw down.58
At the time of this writing, Pakistan-Afghanistan relations are at a new nadir. On September 20,
Afghan High Peace Council chairman and former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani was
assassinated in his Kabul home by a suicide bomber, dealing a major blow to hopes for
reconciliation talks. Afghan officials suspect the ISI played a role in the murder, saying the
attacker was Pakistani and the attack had been planned in Quetta. They also criticize Islamabad
for its alleged failure to cooperate in the related investigation. Pakistani officials denied playing
any part in the assassination, but the Afghan president has continued to accuse Pakistan of “using
terrorism” as official policy. Most recently, in October, Afghan intelligence officials claimed to
55 “Envoy: Pakistan Should Aid Talks,” USA Today, September 8, 2011; “Karzai Lashes Out at Pakistan,” Financial
Times (London), October 3, 2011.
56 “Karzai Told to Dump U.S.-Pakistan Urges Afghanistan to Ally With Islamabad, Beijing,” Wall Street Journal, April
27, 2011.
57 See the June 12, 2011, text at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2011/June/Pr_200.htm.
58 “Pakistan Launching Military Intervention to Subjugate Afghanistan,” MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report
No. 703, July 6, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
19
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
have halted a plot to assassinate Karzai himself and said the alleged culprits—an Egyptian and a
Bangladeshi—were based in the FATA and affiliated with both Al Qaeda and the Haqqanis.59
Haqqani Network Attacks and U.S. Frustrations
The terrorist network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, based in the FATA, is
commonly identified as the most dangerous of Afghan insurgent groups battling U.S.-led forces
in eastern Afghanistan.60 Islamabad officials have consistently deferred on urgent and
longstanding U.S. requests that the Pakistani military launch operations against the Haqqanis’
North Waziristan haven, saying their forces are already stretched too thin. Most observers believe
the underlying cause of Pakistan’s inaction is the country’s decades-long relationship with
Jalaluddin Haqqani and a belief held in the army and ISI that his group represents perhaps the
best chance for Islamabad to exert Pashtun-based influence in post-ISAF Afghanistan.
In mid-2011, the Haqqanis undertook several high-visibility attacks in Afghanistan that led to a
spike in frustrations being expressed by top U.S. and Afghan officials. First, a late June assault on
Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel by eight Haqqani gunmen and suicide bombers left 18 people
dead. Then, on September 10, a truck bomb attack on a U.S. military base by Haqqani fighters in
the Wardak province injured 77 American troops and killed five Afghans. But it was a September
13 attack on the U.S. Embassy compound in Kabul that appears to have substantively changed the
nature of U.S.-Pakistan relations. The well planned and executed assault sparked a 20-hour-long
gunbattle and left 16 Afghans dead, five police officers and at least six children among them.
Although U.S. officials dismissed the attack as a sign of the insurgents’ weakness, the ability of
militants to undertake a complex raid in the heart of Kabul’s most protected area was seen by
many as a clear blow to a narrative which has Afghanistan becoming more secure.
U.S. and Afghan officials concluded the Embassy attackers were members of the Haqqani
network. Days after the raid, Adm. Mullen called on Gen. Kayani to again press for Pakistani
military action against Haqqani bases. Apparently unsatisfied with his counterpart’s response,
Mullen returned to Washington, DC, and began ramping up rhetorical pressure to previously
unseen levels, accusing the ISI of using the Haqqanis to conduct a “proxy war” in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Secretary Panetta issued what was taken by many to be an ultimatum to Pakistan
when he told reporters that the United States would “take whatever steps are necessary to protect
our forces” in Afghanistan from future attacks by the Haqqanis.61 Then, during September 22
testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mullen issued the strongest and most
direct U.S. government statement on Pakistani malfeasance of the post-2001 era, saying,
59 “Karzai Says Pakistan is Supporting Terrorists,” Washington Post, October 4, 2011; “Afghans Say Plot Aimed to
Kill Karzai,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2011.
60 A recent overview describes the network as interdependent with Al Qaeda, an enabler for other jihadi groups, and
“the fountainhead of local, regional, and global militancy.” It is also called the “primary conduit” for Pakistani Taliban
fighters to transit into Afghanistan and as the “central diplomatic interface” between the TTP and the Pakistani
government. The report is pessimistic on the network’s potential to disengage itself from Al Qaeda (Dan Rassler and
Vahid Brown, “The Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of Al-Qa’ida,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Harmony Program, July 13, 2011). See also Jeffrey Dressler, “The Haqqani Network: From Pakistan to Afghanistan,”
Institute for the Study of War Afghanistan Report #6, October 12, 2010.
61 “Joint Chiefs Chairman Presses Pakistan on Militant Havens,” New York Times, September 17, 2011; U.S. Says
Pakistani Spies Using Group for ‘Proxy War,’” Reuters, September 21, 2011; “U.S. Issues Sharp Warning on Militant
Ties,” Washington Post, September 21, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
20
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
The Haqqani network, for one, acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence agency. With ISI support, Haqqani operatives plan and conducted that
[September 13] truck bomb attack, as well as the assault on our embassy. We also have
credible evidence they were behind the June 28th attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in
Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.... In choosing to use violent
extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan, and most especially the
Pakistan army and ISI, jeopardizes not only the prospect of our strategic partnership but
Pakistan’s opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence.... By
exporting violence, they’ve eroded their internal security and their position in the region.
They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-
being. [emphasis added]62
Secretary Panetta, testifying alongside Mullen, took the opportunity to add, “I think the first order
of business right now is to, frankly, put as much pressure on Pakistan as we can to deal with this
issue from their side.”63 The statements of America’s two top military officials were widely seen
to signal a new and more strident level of U.S. intolerance for Pakistan’s regional “double-game,”
a posture perhaps spurred by recognition that U.S. military leverage in the region is a diminishing
asset and that, given a persistently negative trajectory in bilateral relations in 2011, the United
States has little to lose by ramping up pressure.64 Some analysts reacted to Mullen’s comments by
calling for an immediate suspension of all assistance programs for Pakistan and a reversal of U.S.
plans to withdraw from Afghanistan.65 In Pakistan, many braced themselves for an expected U.S.
military incursion into the FATA.
Publically, the Obama Administration did not fully align itself with Adm. Mullen’s charges,
which may have elicited internal criticism as being overstated, given an apparent paucity of
intelligence evidence of ISI control over the Haqqanis. Yet the National Security Council
reportedly had vetted the admiral’s written testimony and did not object to its content.66 President
Obama himself later stated, “I think the intelligence is not as clear as we might like in terms of
what exactly the [ISI-Haqqani] relationship is,” but he still insisted that the Pakistanis “have got
to take care of this problem” in any case. In a subsequent press conference, the President
acknowledged that successes in degrading Al Qaeda have come through important cooperation
from Pakistan, but opined that Pakistan “has been more ambivalent about some of our goals” in
Afghanistan and “there is no doubt” that Pakistan’s security services have connections “with
certain individuals that we find troubling.”67 Later reporting called the Wardak truck bombing a
“turning point” in hardening Secretary Clinton’s attitude toward the Haqqanis.68
62 “Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing on Iraq and Afghanistan,” CQ Transcripts, September 22, 2011.
Recently retired Defense Secretary Robert Gates later offered, “There’s little question in my mind that [the Haqqanis]
receive support and protection from the ISI.” Mullen’s strong language may have come as a result of his
disappointment that a planned Pakistani offensive against the Haqqanis—reportedly worked out between himself and
Kayani earlier this year—did not materialize (“Gates: Pakistan Spy Agency Tied to Militant Group,” Wall Street
Journal, October 6, 2011; “How Pakistan Lost Its Top U.S. Friend,” Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2011).
63 “Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing on Iraq and Afghanistan,” CQ Transcripts, September 22, 2011.
64 Daniel Markey, “The Gloves Come Off,” Foreign Policy (online), September 23, 2011.
65 See, for example, Lisa Curtis, “U.S. Should React Strongly to Pakistan’s Involvement in Attack on U.S. Embassy,”
Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 3369, September 26, 2011.
66 “Mullen’s Pakistan Remarks Criticized,” Washington Post, September 28, 2011; “Undercutting Admiral Mullen,”
TheDailyBeast.com, September 29, 2011.
67 “Obama: Pakistan Must Sort Out Haqqani ‘Problem,’” Agence France Presse, September 30, 2011; “News
Conference by the President,” White House transcript, October 6, 2011.
68 “Top US Delegation to Enlist Pakistan’s Help,” Associated Press, October 19, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
21
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Islamabad rejects claims that Pakistan is responsible for spates of violence in Afghanistan or that
it supports or has control over the Haqqanis; one unnamed military officer was quoted as saying,
“Instead of blaming us, [the United States and Afghanistan] should take action against terrorists
on their side of the border.” A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman was unwilling to provide direct
answers to questions about Islamabad’s relationship with the Haqqanis, but the Pakistani military
called Mullen’s statements “very unfortunate and not based on fact,” and categorically denied
conducting a proxy war or supporting the Haqqanis. A stern Foreign Minister Khar said that, with
such allegations, the United States could “lose an ally” and “can’t afford to alienate the Pakistani
people.”69 President Zardari, in an op-ed response in the Washington Post, said that “verbal
assaults” against Pakistan are damaging the bilateral relationship: “It is time for the rhetoric to
cool and for serious dialogue between allies to resume.”70 In mid-October, Army Chief Kayani
reportedly warned that the United States should “think ten times” before launching any future
military raids on Pakistani territory.71
A Haqqani Role in Afghan Reconciliation?
As noted above, Pakistani officials have for more than a year sought to facilitate a rapprochement
between the Haqqanis and the Kabul government, but close Haqqani links with Al Qaeda have
been a major sticking point (Al Qaeda figures are widely believed to enjoy sanctuary in Haqqani-
controlled areas). Pakistan—especially through its military and intelligence agencies—is seen to
wield considerable clout with the Haqqanis and may be the only actor able to prod them toward
negotiations.72 Unnamed Pakistani military officials have in recent months claimed they can
“deliver” the Haqqanis to a negotiating table and that this is the only viable policy option (on the
assumption that a military assault on Haqqani bases would only engulf the region in a conflict the
Pakistani military would likely be unable to win). However, by bringing the insurgent group into
negotiations, Islamabad would be guaranteed a central role in the ensuing process, a development
some in Washington and other interested capitals wish to avoid.73
The Obama Administration has been considering formally designating the Haqqani Network as a
Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under U.S. law, especially with pressure to do so coming
from some senior Senators, Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Carl Levin and
Intelligence Committee Co-Chair Senator Dianne Feinstein among them.74 Seven Haqqani leaders
have been under U.S. sanctions since 2008 and, in May, Secretary Clinton designated operational
commander Badruddin Haqqani under Executive Order 13224. However, the potential decision
on an FTO designation is complicated by the Administration’s apparent willingness to negotiate
with the Haqqani leadership, something that has occurred at least once in the recent past (without
result), and that Secretary Clinton has indicated may be necessary again in order to establish
sustainable peace in Afghanistan.75
69 “Pakistan Not to Blame for Afghan Violence: Officials,” Reuters, September 19, 2011; Foreign Ministry press
briefing, September 22, 2011; ISPR press release, September 23, 2011; “Pakistan Warns US It Could ‘Lose an Ally,’”
Financial Times (London), September 23, 2011.
70 Asif Ali Zardari, “Talk To, Not At, Pakistan” (op-ed), Washington Post, October 2, 2011.
71 “Pakistan Warns US Over Unilateral Military Action,” BBC News, October 19, 2011.
72 “Reconciliation Efforts With Afghan Militants Face Major Obstacle,” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2010.
73 “Pakistan Says It Can Bring Haqqani to Peace Talks,” Associated Press, August 18, 2011.
74 “US Weighs Blacklisting Haqqani Network,” Agence France Presse, September 26, 2011.
75 “US Secretly Met Afghan Militants,” Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2011; “U.S. Open to Afghan Peace Deal
(continued...)
Congressional Research Service
22
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Pakistan and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan
Ammonium nitrate (AN) is widely-used fertilizer that also has commercial uses as a chemical
explosives precursor. The great majority of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used by Islamist
insurgents fighting in Afghanistan employ AN and, since the Kabul government’s January 2010
ban on the substance, nearly all illicit AN in Afghanistan is believed to arrive via transshipments
from neighboring Pakistan.76 According to data from the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive
Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), the summer of 2011 saw historic peaks in total IED
“events” in Afghanistan. However, with improved detection and clearing capabilities—and a
major increase in cache finds—the “effective” IED attack rate has declined.77
The U.S. government is urging Islamabad to adjust Pakistani national laws to restrict access to
AN there or, short of that, to encourage Pakistani law enforcement and border security agencies to
be more active and effective in efforts to prevent its movement into Afghanistan. Washington’s
relevant efforts fall into three main categories: (1) diplomatic initiatives; (2) law enforcement
initiatives; and (3) science and technology efforts. JIEDDO, the State Department’s SRAP staff,
and staff of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement
office are engaged in these efforts. In addition, Operation Global Shield (also known as Project
Global Shield) is an unprecedented multilateral law enforcement operation launched in late 2010
to combat the illicit cross-border diversion and trafficking of 11 chemical explosives precursors
(including AN) by monitoring their cross-border movements. A U.S.-proposed collaborative
effort of the World Customs Organization, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and Interpol, the
program has realized some notable successes to date.78
Pakarab Fertilizers Ltd., in the central Pakistani city of Multan, is the country’s largest fertilizer
complex and has been in operation since 1979 (it was privatized in 2005). As reported by the
Pakistani Ministry of Industries and Production, the Multan facility has produced well over
300,000 metric tons of AN annually since 2004.79 There is pending legislation in Islamabad that
would adjust relevant Pakistani national laws to further restrict AN and other precursors.
However, this “Explosives Ordinance” has remained in draft stage only, meaning that near-term
changes are unlikely. The Islamabad government has established a National Counter-IED Forum
in which all relevant Pakistani agencies can work together to develop an action plan. In the
absence of an outright ban, the United States has had to rely on Pakistani police and border
authorities who are vulnerable to corruption. During a July visit to Islamabad for the fourth
meeting of the U.S.-Pakistan Law Enforcement and Counterterrorism Working Group, a senior
State Department official reportedly was assured by Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik
(...continued)
Including Haqqani,” Reuters, October 11, 2011.
76 Pentagon officials say that 85% of Afghan IEDs use AN manufactured in Pakistan (“Tensions With Pakistan Rise
Over Bomb Ingredient,” National Journal Daily, July 6, 2011).
77 Author interview with JIEDDO official, August 4, 2011.
78 Under Global Shield, more than 70 participating countries are currently sharing information with each other to ensure
that imported chemicals are being used in safe and legal ways, resulting in 22 seizures of explosive precursors, over 33
metric tons of chemicals seized, and 18 arrests reported by participating countries through July 2011 (statement of
Secretary Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security Department transcript, July 21, 2011).
79 See http://www.moip.gov.pk/fertilizerProduction.htm.
Congressional Research Service
23
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
that Islamabad would soon launch a U.S.-assisted program to train Pakistani officers in
interdicting potential IEDs.80
U.S./NATO Ground Lines of Communication
NATO remains dependent upon ground and air lines of communication (GLOCs and ALOCs)
through and over Pakistan to supply its forces in landlocked Afghanistan. The surface routes
regularly come under attack by militants, and have at times been temporarily closed by the
Pakistani government in apparent efforts to convey Islamabad’s leverage and displeasure with
U.S. policies. In 2008, insurgents began more focused attempts to interdict these supply lines,
especially near the historic Khyber Pass connecting Peshawar with Jalalabad, Afghanistan, but
also to include the route from Karachi to Kandahar, which runs through Quetta and the Chaman
border crossing. Such efforts have left thousands of transport and fuel trucks destroyed, and
numerous Pakistani drivers dead. Sporadic interdiction attacks continue to date.
In response, the U.S. military began testing alternative routes, concentrating especially on lines
from Central Asia and Russia. By mid-2010, this “Northern Distribution Network” (NDN) was
carrying well over half of NATO’s total supplies, but only “nonlethal” cargo moves via the NDN.
While senior U.S. defense officials reportedly prefer Pakistan as a logistics route, they continue to
expand aerial and NDN routes, even if the former is some ten times as costly and the latter entails
greater U.S. reliance on authoritarian regimes in Central Asia. The U.S. Army reports keeping 45
days worth of fuel on the ground in Pakistan so that severe supply line disruptions do not curtail
operations. Sensitive and high-technology equipment is transported by airlift. The Pentagon’s
goal is to eventually have three-quarters of shipments move via the NDN.81 At present, about one-
third of supplies for NATO troops still move along Pakistani GLOCs.
Indigenous Islamist Militancy and Pakistani
Military Operations
Islamist extremism and militancy has been a menace to Pakistani society throughout the post-
2001 period, becoming especially prevalent since 2007, but the rate of attacks and number of
victims may have peaked in 2009.82 The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) reported
a significant decline in terrorist incidents in 2010 as compared to the previous year. Nevertheless,
the figures again placed the country third in the world on both measures, after Afghanistan and
Iraq. Suicide bombing is a relatively new scourge in Pakistan. Only two such bombings were
recorded there in 2002; that number rose to 84 in 2009, before dropping to 51 in 2010. Still,
Pakistan accounted for more than 40% of all suicide bombing deaths worldwide last year. By the
NCTC’s count, Pakistan suffered an average of more than 31 terrorist attacks and 47 related
80 “Practical Steps Being Adopted With U.S. Support to Check IEDs,” Pakistan Press International, July 7, 2011.
81 Statement of Gen. David Petraeus, “Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing on the Situation in
Afghanistan,” CQ Transcripts, June 16, 2010; “U.S. Turns to Other Routes to Supply Afghan War as Relations With
Pakistan Fray,” Washington Post, July 2, 2011; Statement of Lt. Gen. Mitchell Stevenson before the Senate Armed
Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, May 18, 2011.
82 In addition to widespread Islamist violence, Pakistan currently suffers from a serious and worsening separatist
insurgency in its southwestern Baluchistan province, as well as rampant politically motivated violence in the megacity
of Karachi which has left an estimated 1,300 or more people dead in 2011 to date.
Congressional Research Service
24
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
deaths each week during the first half of 2011.83 In recent years, militants have made sometimes
spectacular attacks targeting the country’s own military and intelligence institutions.84 Islamabad
reports that terrorism and Islamist militancy have taken about 35,000 Pakistani lives since 2001,
including some 5,000 security personnel, and cost the country up to $100 billion in material and
financial losses.85
The myriad and sometimes disparate Islamist militant groups operating in Pakistan, many of
which have displayed mutual animosity in the past, have become more intermingled and mutually
supportive since 2009 (see text box below). U.S. leaders remain concerned that Al Qaeda
terrorists operate with impunity on Pakistani territory, although the group apparently was
weakened in recent years through the loss of key leaders and experienced operatives. The Tehrik-
i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) emerged as a coherent grouping in late 2007. This “Pakistani Taliban” is
said to have representatives from each of Pakistan’s seven tribal agencies, as well as from many
of the “settled” districts abutting the FATA. The Haqqani Network is based in the North
Waziristan and Kurram agencies of the FATA.
Islamist Militant Groups in Pakistan
Islamist militant groups operating in and from Pakistani territory are of five broad types:
•
Globally oriented militants, especially Al Qaeda and its primarily Uzbek affiliates, operating out of the FATA and in
the megacity of Karachi;
•
Afghanistan-oriented militants, including the “Quetta shura” of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Umar, believed to
operate from the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta, as well as Karachi; the organization run by Jalaluddin
Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, in the North Waziristan and Kurram tribal agencies; and the Hizb-I Islami party
led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (HiG), operating further north from the Bajaur tribal agency and Dir district;
•
India- and Kashmir-oriented militants, especially the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and Harakat
ul-Mujahadeen (HuM), based in both the Punjab province and in Pakistan-held Kashmir;
•
Sectarian militants, in particular the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and its offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
(LeJ), the latter closely associated with Al Qaeda, operating mainly in Punjab; and
•
Domestically oriented, largely Pashtun militants that in 2007 unified under the leadership of now-deceased Baitullah
Mehsud as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), then based in the South Waziristan tribal agency, with
representatives from each of Pakistan’s seven FATA agencies, later to incorporate the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-
Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) led by Maulana Sufi Mohammed in the northwestern Malakand and Swat districts
of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistan’s densely populated Punjab province is home to numerous Islamist militant groups with
global and regional jihadist aspirations. Notable among these is the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a
U.S.-designated terrorist group with long-standing ties to the ISI. There appear to be growing
differences over the threat posed by LeT, with the United States increasingly viewing the group as
a threat to its own security. The Raymond Davis affair may have exposed newly independent U.S.
intelligence operations against the LeT in Pakistan.86
83 See the National Counterterrorism Center database at http://www.nctc.gov/wits/witsnextgen.html.
84 Such attacks are ongoing: in February, a suicide bomber killed at least 27 soldiers at a military training center outside
Peshawar; in March, a car bomb exploded near an ISI office in Faisalabad, Punjab, leaving some 32 people dead; in
May, two suicide bombers killed at least 80 paramilitary cadets in the northwestern town of Charsadda. Later that
month, militants raided Karachi’s Mehran Naval Station, killing ten and destroying two U.S.-supplied aircraft.
85 Asif Ali Zardari, “Talk To, Not At, Pakistan” (op-ed), Washington Post, October 2, 2011.
86 “A Shooting in Pakistan Reveals Fraying Alliance,” New York Times, March 13, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
25
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
The Pakistan army has deployed at least 150,000 regular and paramilitary troops in western
Pakistan in response to the surge in militancy there, and the army has seen nearly 3,000 of its
soldiers killed in combat. All seven FATA agencies and adjacent regions have been affected by
conflict; 2009 offensives in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan were notable. Yet, as noted
above, U.S. government assessments paint a discouraging picture of recent efforts, with Islamist
militants successfully fending off or evading what remain limited Pakistani efforts to defeat them.
The Pakistani army said in July 2011 that it had launched new offensive operations in the Kurram
agency aimed at neutralizing staging areas for suicide bombers and also clearing the region’s
main road connecting Kurram’s main city to the rest of Pakistan. Within days, a reported 28,000
people had fled the region.87
By many accounts the North Waziristan agency—home to the Al Qaeda- and Taliban-allied
Haqqani Network and the TTP forces of Hafiz Gul Bahadar, among others—is currently the most
important haven for both Afghan- and Pakistan-oriented militants. Pakistani officials have
continued to demur on urgent U.S. requests that their military move into what many consider the
“final” militant haven of North Waziristan, saying they need to consolidate the areas newly under
their control.88 In other areas where Pakistani military offensives have taken place, the “clearing”
phase of operations has met with some successes, but the “holding” phase has proven more
difficult, and “building” is considered impossible to initiate so long as the civilian
administration’s capacity is severely limited.89 Moreover, Pakistan’s military forces are new to
counterinsurgency and demonstrate only limited capacity to undertake effective nonconventional
warfare. Pakistani leaders have complained that the United States has been slow in providing the
kind of hardware needed for this effort, but Islamabad’s recent ejection of U.S. military trainers
has dramatically hindered U.S. efforts to bolster Pakistan’s COIN capabilities.
Pakistan, Terrorism, and U.S. Nationals90
Long-standing worries that American citizens were being recruited and employed in Islamist
terrorism by Pakistan-based elements became more acute in 2010. In May of that year, Faisal
Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin, attempted to detonate a large, but crudely
constructed car bomb in New York City’s Times Square. The Pakistani Taliban claimed
responsibility for the attempted bombing, and the culprit himself confessed to having received
bomb-making training in western Pakistan. Four months later, Shahzad received a mandatory life
sentence in prison. Cases linking U.S. citizens and residents with Islamist extremism in Pakistan
and terrorist plots against American targets are abundant.91
87 “Kurram Offensive Displaces 28,000,” Daily Times (Lahore), July 6, 2011.
88 When pressed by Senate Armed Services Committee members to explain why Pakistan was not going after the
Haqqani Network and Quetta Shura, Centcom Commander General Mattis offered three key reasons: (1) “their difficult
relationship with India” that compels them to maintain a hedge; (2) the difficult terrain of the FATA; and (3) the impact
of mid-2010 flooding, which diverted Pakistani military resources away from counterinsurgency efforts (“Senate
Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing on the Fiscal 2012 Defense Authorization Request for the Special
Operations Command and the U.S. Central Command,” CQ Transcriptions, March 1, 2011).
89 See the White House Report on Afghanistan and Pakistan, September 2011.
90 See also CRS Report R41416, American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat, by Jerome P. Bjelopera.
91 In late 2009, Pakistani authorities arrested five young Americans reported missing from their homes in Virginia. The
Muslim men are believed to have had extensive coded email contacts with Pakistan-based terrorist groups. A Pakistani
court charged them with financing and plotting terrorist attacks and, in June 2010, the so-called Virginia Five were
sentenced to ten years of labor in prison for conspiring against the Pakistani state and helping to finance a militant
(continued...)
Congressional Research Service
26
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
At least one Pakistani-born American was complicit in the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai,
India. In 2009, federal prosecutors charged David Coleman Headley, a Chicagoan convert to
Islam, with traveling to Mumbai five times from 2006 to 2008 as scout for the attack by the
Pakistan-based LeT terrorist group; he subsequently pleaded guilty to the charges. His case was
perhaps the first in which a former Pakistani military officer was directly linked to terrorism
suspects in the United States. Headley and another Pakistan-born Chicagoan, Tahawwur Rana (a
Canadian national), are believed to have reported to Abdur Rehman, a retired Pakistani major
suspected of being an LeT contact. Headley also interacted with Ilayas Kashmiri, a now-deceased
former Pakistani special forces commando with close ties to Al Qaeda. The Indian government
energetically petitioned Washington for direct access to Headley as part of its own investigative
efforts. Access was granted with an extensive interrogation in 2010; Indian officials later said the
information gleaned established an official Pakistani role in the Mumbai attack.
In May 2011, a Chicago court heard testimony in Rana’s trial (Rana was charged with material
support of terrorism related to the Mumbai attack). Three senior LeT members were also indicted
in the case—LeT chief Hafez Saeed among them—along with a purported ISI officer identified as
“Major Iqbal.” Headley, the prosecution’s star witness, detailed links between the ISI and
terrorism, and so added to already fraught U.S.-Pakistan relations and suspicions about official
Pakistani involvement in supporting Islamist militancy. Rana subsequently was acquitted on
charges related to the Mumbai attack, but was found guilty of aiding the LeT and of conspiring to
attack a Danish newspaper.
An Increasing Pakistani Turn to China
Pakistan and China have enjoyed a generally close and mutually beneficial relationship over
several decades. Chinese companies and workers are now pervasive in the Pakistani economy.
Beijing intends to build two new civilian nuclear reactors in Pakistan in what would be an
apparent violation of international guidelines. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s December
2010 visit to Islamabad, the governments signed 12 Memoranda of Understanding covering a
broad range of cooperative efforts and designated 2011 as the “Year of China-Pakistan
Friendship.” Pakistani and Chinese businesses also signed contracts worth some $15 billion
covering cooperation in oil and gas, mining, space technology, heavy machinery, manufacturing,
(...continued)
organization. Also, the case of would-be terrorist bomber Najibullah Zazi—an Afghan national and legal U.S. resident
arrested in 2009 after months of FBI surveillance—seemed to demonstrate that terrorist training camps continue to
operate in the FATA, where Zazi is said to have learned bomb-making skills at an Al Qaeda-run compound. In July
2010, the Justice Department unsealed new terrorism-related charges against Zazi and four other men, including a
Pakistani-American, who allegedly had plans to bomb the New York subways. Other Americans have received terrorist
training in Pakistan, including Bryant Neal Vinas, who confessed to plotting a bomb attack against the Long Island
Railroad in New York. More recently, in April 2011, a Pakistani-American Virginia man was sentenced to 23 years in
prison for plotting a series of bomb attacks on the Washington Metro system. In May, three Pakistani-American
Floridians were among six people indicted on federal charges of providing material support to and encouraging
violence by the Pakistani Taliban. In August, a Maryland teenager from Pakistan was reported to be in U.S. custody
after he allegedly agreed to help Pennsylvania’s “Jihad Jane” raise money and recruits for the jihadist cause. In
September, a Virginia resident from Pakistan was arraigned on charges of producing a jihadist recruiting video on
behalf of the LeT.
Congressional Research Service
27
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
and other areas. This added to the nearly $20 billion worth of government-to-government
agreements reached.92
As U.S.-India ties deepen and U.S.-Pakistan ties appear to deteriorate, many observers see
Islamabad becoming more reliant than ever on its friendship with Beijing. U.S.-Pakistan
acrimony in the wake of OBL’s death appears to have increased Pakistan’s reliance on China as a
key international ally. Pakistani leaders have become notably more and perhaps overly effusive in
their expressions of closeness with China in 2011.93 Prime Minister Gilani’s May travel to China
elicited no major new embrace from Beijing, but the Chinese government did insist that the West
“must respect” Pakistan’s sovereignty, and it agreed to expedite delivery to Pakistan of 50 JF-17
fighter jets equipped with upgraded avionics (Islamabad is also negotiating with Beijing for the
purchase of six new submarines for as much as $3 billion in what would be the largest-ever
bilateral defense purchase). The Islamabad government suffered some embarrassment when its
defense minister, upon returning from the same trip, claimed that the Chinese would assume
control of the deep-water port at Gwadar that it had helped to build and, further, that Beijing
would convert the port for military use. The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed having no
knowledge of the purported plans.
There were concerns among some in Congress and independent analysts that wreckage from a
previously unseen “stealth” helicopter used by U.S. Special Forces in the OBL raid would be
examined by Chinese officials, potentially providing them with valuable intelligence on secret
U.S. military technology. Beijing apparently did express interest in examining the wreckage and,
despite Pakistani assurances that no Chinese officials had been given access to it, U.S.
intelligence sources reportedly believe that Chinese military engineers were, in fact, given access
to the wreckage before it was returned to U.S. custody.94
Pakistan appeared to react quickly and with purpose in August when Beijing publically blamed
Islamist militants trained in Pakistan for terrorist activities in China’s western Xinjiang province.
ISI Director Pasha was dispatched to Beijing with the apparent aim of assuaging China. Yet
Beijing’s willingness to take Islamabad more fully under its wings appears limited. The hesitation
is rooted at least partly in China’s concerns about the rise of Islamist extremism in Pakistan and
some disappointment with progress in developing the Gwadar port, which suffers from a poor
road network and geographical isolation. The Chinese government reportedly is unlikely to place
itself in the middle of any U.S.-Pakistani rift, nor has it shown any desire to replace Washington
as Islamabad’s primary foreign benefactor.95
92 See the December 19, 2010, document at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2010/Dec/Pr_310.htm.
93 For example, in Beijing in May, Prime Minister Gilani spoke of “the reality of this abiding friendship between our
peoples, which is manifested in abundant goodwill, spontaneous affinity, inestimable love and affection, an enduring
romance that transcends all other considerations” (“Remarks of the Prime Minister at the Reception to Commemorate
the 60th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations Between Pakistan and China,” Foreign Ministry
transcript, May 20, 2011).
94 “Could China Profit From Bin Laden Helo Wreckage?” Jane’s Defense Weekly, May 6, 2011; “U.S. Aides Believe
China Examined Stealth Copter,” New York Times, August 15, 2011.
95 “Pakistan Courts China as Relations With U.S. Grow Strained,” Washington Post, June 22, 2011; Andrew Small,
“How All-Weather Are the Ties?,” Pragati (Chennai, online), August 5, 2011; “China Treads Carefully Amid US-
Pakistan Rift,” Reuters, October 4, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
28
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Pakistan-India Relations
Three full-scale wars—in 1947-1948, 1965, and 1971—and a constant state of military
preparedness on both sides of their mutual border have marked more than six decades of bitter
rivalry between Pakistan and India. The acrimonious partition of British India into two successor
states in 1947 and the unresolved issue of Kashmiri sovereignty have been major sources of
tension. Both countries have built large defense establishments at significant cost to economic
and social development. A bilateral “Composite Dialogue” reengaged in 2004 realized some
modest, but still meaningful successes, including a formal cease-fire along the entire shared
frontier, and some unprecedented trade and people-to-people contacts across the Kashmiri Line of
Control (LOC). The dialogue is meant to bring about “peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues,
including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides.”96 Yet 2008 saw significant
deterioration in Pakistan-India relations, especially following the large-scale November terrorist
attack on Mumbai, India, that killed some 165 civilians and left the peace process largely
moribund. More broadly, militarized territorial disputes over Kashmir, the Siachen Glacier, and
the Sir Creek remain unresolved. In 2010, conflict over water resources has emerged as another
exacerbating factor in the bilateral relationship.
Pakistani leaders, like many independent observers, believe that regional peace is inextricably
linked to a solution of the Kashmir dispute. Under the Obama Administration, the U.S.
government has continued its long-standing policy of keeping distance from that dispute and
refraining from any mediation role therein. By some accounts, Pakistan and India are also
fighting a “shadow war” inside Afghanistan with spies and proxies. Islamabad accuses New Delhi
of using Indian consulates in Afghanistan as bases for malevolent interference in Pakistan’s
western regions, although there is scant available evidence to support such claims. Following the
2008 Mumbai attack, the New Delhi government focused on holding Islamabad accountable for
the existence of anti-India terrorists groups in Pakistan, some of them suspected of receiving
direct support from official Pakistani elements, and India essentially refused to reengage the full
spectrum of Composite Dialogue issues. Yet, with a February 2011 meeting of foreign secretaries,
India agreed to resume peace talks without overt mention of the centrality of the terrorism issue.
Days later, the two governments announced that high-level peace talks would be resumed after a
hiatus of more than two years.
Following the brief “cricket diplomacy” of March—Prime Minister Gilani had accepted his
Indian counterpart’s invitation to watch a match in India—bilateral talks between home
secretaries produced an agreement to establish a “terror hotline” between the respective
ministries, along with a Pakistani agreement “in principle” to allow a team of Indian investigators
to travel to Pakistan to assist with issues related to the 2008 Mumbai attack. Under the resumed
dialogue process, the two countries’ commerce secretaries met in April for talks on greater
economic and commercial cooperation. A June meeting of foreign secretaries in Islamabad
appeared unexpectedly positive to many, with the two officials agreeing to expand confidence-
building measures related to both nuclear and conventional weapons, as well as to increase trade
and travel across the Kashmiri LOC.97
96 See the January 6, 2004, Joint Statement at http://www.indianembassy.org/press_release/2004/jan/07.htm.
97 See the June 24, 2011, Joint Statement at http://www.mofa.gov.pk/Press_Releases/2011/June/Pr_218.htm.
Congressional Research Service
29
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
In July, Foreign Minister Khar was in New Delhi for talks with Indian External Affairs Minister
S.M. Krishna, who reaffirmed India’s intention to reduce the bilateral trust deficit and conveyed
New Delhi’s desire for “a stable, prosperous Pakistan acting as a bulwark against terrorism, and at
peace with itself and with its neighbors.” Khar raised some hackles in New Delhi—and an
explicit expression of displeasure from Krishna—by meeting with Kashmiri separatists before
seeing Indian government officials. Yet the resulting Joint Statement further loosened trade and
travel restrictions across the LOC, and was widely taken as a successful representation of a peace
process back on track after a more than two-year hiatus.98 Most recently, the two countries’ trade
ministers met in New Delhi in September and agreed to take steps to further liberalize their
relatively paltry bilateral trade (the necessity of moving exports through Dubai raises transaction
costs, slows deliveries, and inflates prices). India also dropped its longstanding opposition to a
proposed EU initiative that would waive duties on Pakistani exports from its flood-ravaged areas.
Islamabad, for its part, vowed to grant India most-favored nation status by year’s end.
The circumstances of OBL’s death were relevant to the course of relations between Pakistan and
India. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the killing “a significant step forward” and
expressed hope that it would represent a decisive blow to AQ and other terrorist groups. At the
same time, however, there has been apprehension in New Delhi that the development would
hasten a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in ways that could be harmful to India’s foreign
policy interests. New Delhi also saw the discovery of OBL in Pakistan as an opportunity to more
energetically press its demands that Islamabad extradite the alleged perpetrators of the 2008
Mumbai terrorist attack, Lashkar-e-Taiba figures believed to be in Pakistan, as well as other most-
wanted anti-India terrorists such as Dawood Ibrahim. The Indian government continues to
express “concern and disappointment with Pakistan about the lack of progress in the Mumbai trial
and bringing those responsible for this heinous terrorist attack to justice.”99
When Afghan President Karzai made a long-planned trip to New Delhi in early October and
inked a new “strategic framework” with India—Kabul’s first such 21st century agreement with
any country—Pakistan’s fears of strategic encirclement became more acute, especially in light of
the Afghanistan’s acceptance of future Indian assistance in training and equipping its security
forces. Kabul’s floundering efforts to find rapprochement with the Taliban may be behind
Karzai’s decision to link Afghanistan more closely to India. Although the Afghan President took
pains to insist that the pact was not directed at any country, some analysts see it as a highly
provocative development that could make it more difficult to wean Pakistan away from its
apparent reliance on militant proxies in Afghanistan.100
Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Security101
The security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, materials, and technologies continues to be a top-tier
U.S. concern, especially as Islamist militants have expanded their geographic influence there.
Pakistan has in the recent past been a source of serious illicit proliferation to aspiring weapons
98 See the July 27, 2011, text at http://meaindia.nic.in/mystart.php?id=530517878.
99 “Clarification on India-Pakistan Joint Statement,” Indian Ministry of External Affairs press release, July 28, 2011.
100 “Karzai Picks Partnership With India Over Pakistan,” Financial Times (London), October 5, 2011; “Indo-Afghan
Pact Threatens Relations With Pakistan,” Jane’s Intelligence Weekly, October 5, 2011.
101 See also CRS Report RL34248, Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues, by Paul K. Kerr
and Mary Beth Nikitin.
Congressional Research Service
30
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
states. While most analysts and U.S. officials believe Pakistan’s nuclear security is much
improved in recent years, there is ongoing concern that Pakistan’s nuclear know-how or
technologies remain prone to leakage.102 Moreover, recent reports indicate that Pakistan is rapidly
growing its nuclear weapons arsenal, perhaps in response to recent U.S. moves to engage civil
nuclear cooperation with rival India, which the Obama Administration wants to see join major
international nonproliferation regimes.103 This comes at a time that China is planning to build two
new nuclear reactors in Pakistan in apparent violation of Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines. The
proposed deal poses a dilemma for the Obama Administration, which has requested that Beijing
justify the plan and seeks its approval through international fora.
Deteriorated Economic Circumstances
Persistent inflation and unemployment, along with serious food and energy shortages, elicit
considerable economic anxiety in Pakistan and weigh heavily on the civilian government. All of
these existing problems were hugely exacerbated by devastating flooding in mid-2010 (according
to the Finance Ministry, Pakistan’s economy suffered some $10 billion in losses related to this
flooding). Corruption is another persistent and serious obstacle for Pakistan’s economic
development, harming both domestic and foreign investment rates, as well as creating skeptical
international aid donors.104 Foreign direct investment has plummeted from $5.4 billion in
FY2008/2009 to under $2.2 billion in FY2010/2011. Most analysts identify increasing militancy
as the main cause for the decline, although global recession and political instability in Islamabad
are also major factors. In the assessment of international financial institutions, Pakistan’s
economic priorities are addressing inflation, containing the budget deficit, reviving growth, and
meeting the challenge posed by higher global oil prices.
A 2008 balance-of-payments crisis led Islamabad to seek multi-billion dollar loans from the IMF.
The current IMF-supported program is a 34-month, $11.3 billion Stand-By Arrangement first
approved in November 2008, augmented in August 2009, and extended by nine months in
December 2010. Of the original $11.3 billion IMF SBA, $3.6 billion is yet to be disbursed; the
program was placed on hold in August 2010 because Islamabad had failed to implement required
revenue and power sector reforms. Any prospective second IMF program is likely to come with
more stringent conditions, including restructuring of numerous public sector enterprises.
Moreover, in May 2011, security concerns spurred the IMF to put off negotiations with Pakistani
officials, further delaying disbursement of remaining support funds.105
102 In July 2011, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mullen reiterated having a high level of confidence in the safety and
security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, but such public assurances may not match privately expressed U.S. concerns
(“Mullen: Pakistani Nuclear Controls Should Avert Any Insider Threat,” Global Security Newswire,” July 8, 2011;
“Pakistan’s Nuclear Security Troubles,” Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, July 26, 2011).
103 Pakistan is believed to be deploying upwards of 100 nuclear warheads and has significantly accelerated its
production of uranium and plutonium. Analysts also suspect that Pakistan has begun construction of a fourth
plutonium-producing reactor at its Khushab complex (“Pakistan Doubles Its Nuclear Arsenal,” Washington Post,
January 31, 2011; “Pakistan’s Nuclear Surge,” Newsweek, May 15, 2011).
104 For 2010, Berlin-based Transparency International placed Pakistan 143rd out of 178 countries in its annual ranking
of world corruption levels (see http://www.transparency.org).
105 By some accounts, IMF officials are privately angry with Pakistani officials for making allegedly false claims about
tax reforms (see, for example, “IMF Considers Pakistan Economic Teams Deceitful, Liars,” Daily Times (Lahore),
April 26, 2011).
Congressional Research Service
31
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Repayment of IMF loans will place significant constraints on Islamabad’s federal budget, which
is burdened by perpetually low revenue generation. For most observers, this is caused by what
essentially is mass tax evasion by the country’s economic elite, and is exacerbated by a federal
budget overemphasizing military spending. Secretary Clinton is among the U.S. officials critical
of Pakistan’s 9% tax-to-GDP ratio, one of the lowest in the world.106 The government sought to
implement a Reformed General Sales Tax initiative in 2011, but to date has been unable to win
sufficient parliamentary support for what are considered modest changes. Meanwhile, struggles in
Pakistan’s power sector puts a significant damper on commerce and everyday activities, causing
factory shutdowns and rioting by those angry with price hikes and shortages.107 Shortfalls in
electricity supply have led to unannounced outages of up to 20 hours per day in parts of the
country. The government’s early 2011 effort to lower fuel subsidies spurred virulent reaction and
led to political turmoil when an important PPP coalition partner withdrew its support.
Nearly half of Pakistan’s approximately $27 billion FY2011/2012 federal budget—released in
June 2011—will go toward loan repayments. The budget cuts subsidies by more than half, which
will raise prices for energy and other essential items, and increased tax revenues will likely spur
further inflation. Planned defense spending was boosted by 12% over the previous fiscal year.
A key aspiration for Pakistani leaders is to acquire better access to Western markets. With the
security situation deterring foreign investors, exports, especially from the key textile sector, may
be key to any future Pakistani recovery. Islamabad has continued to press Washington and
European capitals for reduced tariffs on textile exports, especially following massive flood
damage to Pakistan’s cotton crop. By some accounts, the textile sector directly employs 3.5
million Pakistanis and accounts for 40% of urban factory jobs. Pakistani officials and business
leaders estimate that abolishing American tariffs, which currently average 17% on cotton apparel,
would boost their country’s exports by $5 billion annually.108 Along with Pakistani leaders, the
Obama Administration has continued to support congressional passage of a bill to establish
Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) in western Pakistan that could facilitate development
in Pakistan’s poor tribal regions, perhaps to include textile manufacture.
Domestic Political Instability
Democracy has fared poorly in Pakistan, with the country enduring direct military rule for more
than half of its existence. More than three years after Pakistan’s relatively credible March 2008
national elections seated a civilian government led by the PPP of assassinated former Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto, the country’s military establishment wields decisive influence over
Pakistan’s foreign policy and national security policies. Meanwhile, the PPP-led coalition has
106 Secretary Clinton has called the issue “a real pet peeve” of hers, telling a House panel, “[I]t is very hard to accept
helping a country that won’t help itself by taxing its richest citizens” (“House Appropriations Subcommittee on State,
Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Holds Hearing on the Proposed Fiscal 2012 Appropriations for the State
Department,” CQ Transcriptions, March 10, 2011).
107 “Pakistan’s Economy Starts to Unravel,” Financial Times (London), October 13, 2011. Pakistan’s maximum power
generating capacity is about 80% of peak demand. Chronic and severe electricity shortages are blamed on low
government pricing, outdated transmission systems, and bureaucratic obstacles to completing new generation projects.
Underinvestment in power stations and a deterioration of the distribution network during the 1999-2008 Musharraf era
are also seen as having instigated the crisis (“Power Cuts Darken Mood in Pakistan,” Financial Times (London), May
25, 2011).
108 “Pakistan Seeks Help for Its Textiles,” Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2010.
Congressional Research Service
32
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
struggled to stay in power and has been unable to rein in the security agencies or enact other
major reforms. Moreover, a judiciary empowered by the 2008 “Lawyer’s Movement” in support
of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has continued to do battle with the executive branch and seeks
to pursue corruption charges against an array of politicians, including President Zardari himself.
President Zardari has never been especially popular among the Pakistani public, and his
favorability ratings are only dropping: a May survey found only 11% of Pakistanis holding a
favorable view of their president. It appears that the country’s most popular politicians are two
opposition figures: Imran Khan, at 68% favorability, and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,
leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), at 63%.109 Khan, with a reputation as an
uncorrupted straight-talker, is seen by many to have exploited anti-American sentiments to hugely
increase his public support, especially among Pakistan’s youth. Yet his Tehreek-e-Insaf party has
no seats in parliament and little infrastructure needed to support a national campaign, and his
sometimes soft policies toward the Pakistani Taliban could be a liability in any future elections.110
In late 2010, serious threats to the PPP’s majority status and to the very existence of its
government have arose. In December of that year, the Jamaat Ulema Islami (JUI)—a small, but
influential Islamist party—withdrew its support for the ruling coalition, narrowing its National
Assembly majority to only nine seats. Then, in January 2011, the Karachi-based Muttahida
Quami Movement (MQM) announced its withdrawal from the coalition in reaction to rising fuel
prices, inflation, and perceived government mismanagement. The loss of the MQM’s 25 seats
removed the coalition’s parliamentary majority, which could have led to government collapse. Yet
most observers concluded that the move was an effort to extract maximum concessions in the
form of greater administrative control for the MQM in its Karachi base. Days later, Prime
Minister Gilani backtracked on recently enacted fuel subsidy reductions, mollifying opposition
parties and clearing the way for the MQM’s quick return to the coalition (three MQM federal
cabinet ministers were appointed in May), but also eliciting criticism from the U.S. government
and the IMF as a reversal of progress made toward strengthening Pakistan’s economic base.
In February, Prime Minister Gilani dismissed his more than 60 cabinet ministers in a cost-cutting
initiative. A new cabinet of only 21 ministers was appointed days later, with all major posts held
by the same figures but for foreign minister. In early May, the PPP’s standing was strengthened
through a new alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) faction, former
parliamentary supporters of Pervez Musharraf. The PML-Q’s considerable support in the Punjab
province and its agreement to contest the next general elections as PPP allies bolstered the ruling
party’s status and could represent a threat to that of Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N.
In late June, the MQM again announced it was quitting the PPP-led coalition, joining the
opposition, and would no longer work with the “dictatorial” government, but Prime Minister
Gilani continued to claim the party was a coalition partner and, in early October, President
Zardari was able to convince MQM leadership to formally rejoin the coalition and federal
cabinet. In October, the PML-Q announced that it would withdraw from the ruling coalition
because the PPP had failed to resolve the country’s energy crisis; President Zardari was likewise
able to persuade the party to remain in the fold.
109 “U.S. Image in Pakistan Falls No Further Following Bin Laden Killing,” Pew Global Attitudes, June 21, 2011.
110 “How Pakistan’s Imran Khan Taps Anti-Americanism to Fuel Political Rise,” Christian Science Monitor, June 28,
2011; “Imran Khan: From Cricket Hero to Pakistan Leader?,” Dawn (Karachi), June 29, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
33
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
The circumstances of OBL’s death were hugely embarrassing for the Pakistani military and led to
rare domestic criticism of that institution, traditionally the country’s most respected. This in turn
created an opening in which Pakistan’s civilian leaders might wrest some modicum of control
over the country’s foreign and national security policies. With the embarrassment of the Mehran
naval base attack compounded by scandals involving apparent abuse of power and human rights,
media criticism of the security establishment continued at unprecedented levels through the early
summer. Yet, to date, there has been little sign that the civilians would take advantage of these
openings; rather, they have rallied behind the security services and made no calls for the
resignations of either the Army or ISI Chiefs. Parliament did seat a commission to investigate
how bin Laden had found refuge in Pakistan and how American forces were able to penetrate
Pakistani territory, but the body’s initial lack of focus and cohesion diminished expectations that
its work could lead to greater civilian authority.111
Human Rights Issues
Pakistan is the setting for serious perceived human rights abuses, some of them perpetrated and/or
sanctioned by the state. According to the U.S. Department of State, although Pakistan’s civilian
government has taken some positive steps, the overall human rights situation there remains poor
and includes abuses against women and minorities.112 Most recently, U.S. government attention to
human rights abuses in Pakistan has centered on press freedoms,113 indefinite government
detention of detainees related to anti-terrorism efforts and alleged extrajudicial executions
perpetrated by the Pakistani military in conflict areas, and on religious freedoms threatened by
Pakistan’s “blasphemy laws.” U.S. Ambassador Munter has also expressed concern about the
rights of Pakistani women following the April 2011 action by the Pakistani Supreme Court
acquitting five of the six men accused of gang-raping Muktaharan Mai in a 2002 case that gained
international attention.114
Regarding “disappearances” and extrajudicial killings by Pakistani security forces, acute U.S.
concerns were elicited in late 2010 by evidence of serious abuses. International human rights
groups have pressed the Pakistani government to launch investigations into reports of summary
executions and torture perpetrated by soldiers and police during counterterrorism operations, and
have accused Pakistani authorities of making insufficient progress in resolving the cases.115 The
Obama Administration has declared that it will abide by “Leahy amendment” provisions by
withholding train and equip funding for several Pakistani army units believed to be complicit in
111 “Scandals Taint Revered Pakistan Military,” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2011; “After Osama bin Laden Raid, Hopes
Dim for More Civilian Control of Pakistan Military,” Christian Science Monitor, June 8, 2011.
112 The 2011 annual report of Human Rights Watch highlighted the Pakistani security forces’ “routine” violation of
basic rights in the course of counterterrorism operations, including detention without charge, convictions without fair
trial, forced evictions, house demolitions, and extrajudicial executions. “Enforced disappearances” of Baloch separatists
is an ongoing concern, and “violence and mistreatment of women and girls, including rape, domestic violence, and
forced marriages, remain serious problems.”
113 Press freedoms in Pakistan are seen to be seriously constrained, despite the existence of booming news media.
Watchdog groups rank Pakistan as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists (“Pakistan Journalists
Walk Razor’s Edge,” Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2011).
114 See the U.S. Embassy’s April 28, 2011, release at http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-280411001.html. See also
“Pakistan Rape Case Acquittal Seen as Setback to Women’s Rights,” Christian Science Monitor, April 21, 2011.
115 See, for example, “‘The Bitterest of Agonies’: End Enforced Disappearances in Pakistan,” Amnesty International,
September 2011.
Congressional Research Service
34
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
human rights abuses.116 Concerns about violent state-sponsored repression heightened following
the Shahzad murder earlier in 2011.
Independent analyses regularly find the Pakistani state complicit in the persecution of and
discrimination against the country’s religious minorities, which by most accounts has worsened in
recent years. Among the recommendations of critics are repealing the blasphemy laws;
criminalizing the advocacy of religious hatred or incitement to discrimination; ending the
impunity enjoyed by prayer leaders who incite sectarian or communal hatred; reforming law
enforcement and judicial bodies; and providing more inclusive school curricula, among others.117
Laws prohibiting blasphemy in Pakistan are meant to protect Islamic holy persons, beliefs,
customs, and objects from insult or defilement. They are widely popular with the public. Yet they
are criticized by human rights groups as discriminatory and arbitrary in their use, which often
arises in the context of personal vendettas, and can involve little or no persuasive evidence. The
laws again came under scrutiny in late 2010 when a Pakistani Christian woman was sentenced to
death for what seemed to many a minor offense. International human rights groups issued newly
urgent calls for the law’s repeal, and President Zardari himself vowed to personally review the
case. Yet the PPP-led government backed away from reform proposals after Islamist hardline
groups, including some with links to terrorist organizations, were able to rally a host of protestors,
including as many as 50,000 people on the streets of Karachi. As noted above, two of the most
vocal government proponents of reforming the laws were assassinated earlier in 2011. The only
other high-profile national politician pursuing reform efforts, National Assembly member Sherry
Rehman, was forced to withdraw her legislative proposal after her PPP leaders announced that no
reforms would be undertaken.
U.S. Assistance
In 2001, Congress renewed large U.S. assistance packages to Pakistan. By the end of FY2011,
Congress had appropriated more than $13.2 billion in overt assistance, including nearly $7.5
billion in development and humanitarian aid, and more than $5.7 billion for security-related
programs (see Table 1). In 2009, both chambers of Congress passed their own Pakistan-specific
bills authorizing increased nonmilitary aid to Pakistan (to $1.5 billion per year for five years) and
placing certain conditions on future security-related aid to that country. The Enhanced Partnership
with Pakistan Act (EPPA) of 2009, also known as the “Kerry-Lugar-Berman” (KLB) bill for its
main sponsors, became P.L. 111-73. Earlier that year, Congress also established a new Pakistan
Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (PCCF) that is meant to enhance the ability of Pakistani
security forces to effectively combat militancy. Moreover, since FY2002 Congress has
appropriated billions of dollars to reimburse Pakistan (and other nations) for its operational and
logistical support of U.S.-led counterterrorism operations. At nearly $9 billion, these “coalition
support funds” have accounted for a large portion of all overt U.S. financial transfers to Pakistan
116 Sec. 620J of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (P.L. 87-195, as amended), also known as the Leahy Amendment,
states that “No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security
forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations
of human rights.”
117 “A Question of Faith: A Report on the Status of Religious Minorities in Pakistan,” Jinnah Institute, June 2011.
Congressional Research Service
35
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
since 2001. In recent years, more careful oversight of such disbursements reportedly has led to a
major increase in the rate of rejected claims.118
The Administration’s congressionally mandated Pakistan Assistance Strategy Report, issued in
December 2009, laid out the principal objectives of nonmilitary U.S. assistance to Pakistan (to
help “in building a stable, secure, and prosperous Pakistan”), a general description of the
programs and projects designed to achieve these goals, and a plan for monitoring and evaluating
the effort. For FY2010-FY2014, it proposed to devote $3.5 billion—nearly half of the $7.5 billion
of the aid authorized by the EPPA—to “high-impact, high-visibility” infrastructure programs,
especially in the energy and agriculture sectors. The extensive damage caused by Pakistan’s mid-
2010 floods required reconsideration of these plans, with significant funds being redirected
toward disaster relief and reconstruction. In mid-2011, U.S. officials said 110 of 160 aid projects
in Pakistan would be abandoned in an effort to focus on 50 high-visibility projects. Most recently,
Washington is considering making grants to help the Pakistani government launch construction of
the planned Diamer Basha dam in the country’s far northeast. The Asian Development is taking
the lead on the roughly $12 billion project which, when completed in eight or more years, could
generate 4,500 megawatts of electricity, enough to fill the country’s entire current shortfall.119
A February 2011 GAO report determined that, as of the end of 2010, only about $180 million of
the some $1.5 billion appropriated for civilian assistance to Pakistan in FY2010 had been
disbursed.120 The Administration reports having disbursed another $475 million in civilian aid
funds during the first half of 2011, roughly half of which are distributed directly through
Pakistani government institutions. Still, the majority of appropriated KLB funds have not been
spent, in large part because of concerns about corruption and the capacity of Pakistan’s
government and contractors to effectively oversee aid projects, and confusion over priorities. The
delay serves to reinforce Pakistani perceptions that the United States cannot be relied upon to
follow through on its promises.121
Security-related U.S. assistance to Pakistan includes provision of extensive “train and equip”
programs. Major U.S. arms transfers to Pakistan since 2001 have included items useful for
counterterrorism operations, along with a number of “big ticket” platforms more suited to
conventional warfare. Under multiple authorities, Pakistan has received helicopters, infantry
arms, and a wide array of other equipment. Pakistani officials continue to complain that U.S.-
supplied defense equipment, especially that most needed for counterinsurgency operations such
as attack and utility helicopters, has been too slow in coming. Security assistance to Pakistan’s
civilian sector is aimed at strengthening the country’s law enforcement capabilities through basic
police training, provision of advanced identification systems, and establishment of a new
Counterterrorism Special Investigation Group.
August press reports indicated that, soon after the OBL raid, the Obama Administration began
keeping a “secret scorecard” of U.S. objectives with which to measure Pakistan’s cooperation and
118 Pakistan reportedly has “routinely” submitted “unsubstantiated” or “exaggerated” claims, and denial rates climbed
from less than 2% in 2005 to 44% in 2009 (“U.S. Balks at Pakistani Bills,” Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2011).
119 “US to Cut Pakistan Aid Projects,” Financial Times (London), June 2, 2011; “Pakistan Inaugurates Huge Dam
Project, Hoping U.S. Will Help With Funds,” McClatchy News, October 18, 2011.
120 See http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11310r.pdf.
121 White House Report on Afghanistan and Pakistan, September 2011; “Aid Plan for Pakistan is Falling Short of
Goals,” Washington Post, August 5, 2011.
Congressional Research Service
36
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
condition the release of future security assistance funds. The new approach is said to involve
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper rating Pakistan’s performance in four “baskets,”
or issue-areas: (1) cooperation on exploiting intelligence from OBL’s Abbottabad compound; (2)
cooperation with the war in Afghanistan; (3) cooperation in conducting joint counterterrorism
operations; and (4) cooperation in improving the tone of bilateral relations.122
As noted above, the circumstances of OBL’s death and subsequent developments have had major
impact on both Administration and congressional perceptions of the utility of current U.S. aid
programs. A substantive reevaluation of aid levels—and of the bilateral relationship more
generally—has been underway in 2011, and congressional figures have issued some of the
strongest criticisms of Pakistan as a U.S. ally seen in decades.123 In what some observers view as
a counterproductive approach, some in Congress are reported to seeks cuts in development rather
than security aid, the argument being that short-term U.S. interests in combating terrorism and
Afghan insurgents trump longer-term interests in seeing Pakistan transformed into a more
prosperous and democratic state.124 However, there appears to be a growing recognition among
observers that U.S. military aid has done little to stem Islamist militancy in Pakistan and may
even hinder that country’s economic and political development. Many of these analysts thus urge
the U.S. government to emphasize targeted and effective nonmilitary aid, perhaps especially that
which would strengthen Pakistan’s civil society.125
122 “U.S. Links Pakistan Aid to Performance,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2011.
123 In June, the House Appropriations Committee approved a defense spending bill that would withhold three-quarters
of the $1.1 billion appropriated for the PCCF until the Administration reports to Congress on how the funds would be
spent. The panel also passed an amendment that would give Congress 30 days to review the report before determining
if the funds should be released. In September, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to place new terrorism-
related conditions on both military and nonmilitary aid to Pakistan. The Committee did not specify FY2012 aid levels
for Pakistan—leaving it for the Administration to determine these—but one Senator was quoted as saying, “If the
Administration wants to provide zero, that’d be okay with us.” Even energetic supporters of the KLB emphasis on
nonmilitary aid reportedly are having second thoughts about the wisdom of providing more such funds to Pakistan
(Senator Mark Kirk quoted in “US Senate Panel Votes Restrictions on Pakistan Aid,” Reuters, September 22, 2011;
“Support Wavers for U.S. Economic Aid to Pakistan,” Reuters, September 28, 2011).
124 “Pakistan Military Aid Safer Than the Economic Aid,” The Cable (ForeignPolicy.com), May 11, 2011.
125 See, for example, Colin Cookman, et al., “The Limits of U.S. Assistance to Pakistan,” Center for American
Progress, July 2011; Timothy Hoyt, “Pakistan, an Ally By Any Other Name,” Proceedings, July 2011. A May survey
of 51 American “national security insiders” found a near-perfect split on the question of cutting U.S. aid to Pakistan. Of
the half who supported cuts, most said they should come from the military portion only (“National Security Insiders
Split Down Middle on Cutting Aid to Pakistan,” National Journal (online), May 22, 2011).
Congressional Research Service
37
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
Table 1. Direct Overt U.S. Aid Appropriations and Military Reimbursements to
Pakistan, FY2002-FY2012
(rounded to the nearest millions of dollars)
Program
or
Account
Program or
FY2002-
FY2011
Total,
FY2012
Account
FY2005 FY2006 FY2007 FY2008 FY2009 FY2010
(est.)
FY02-11 (req.)
1206 —
28
14
56
114
—
a
212
a
CN 8
24
49
54
47
43a
63
288
a
CSFb 4,085c
862 731
1,019
685
1,499
d
8,881d
d
FC —
—
—
75
25
—
—
100
—
FMF 674
297
297
298
300
294
295
2,455
350
IMET
5
2
2
2
2
5
4
22
5
INCLE 186
38
24
22
88
170
114
642
125
NADR 24
9
10
10
13
24
25
115
23
PCF/PCCF —
—
—
—
400
700e
800
1,900
1,100
Total
Security-
4,982
1,260
1,127
1,536
1,674
2,735
1,301 14,615
1,603
Related
CSH/GHCS 77
28
22
30
34
30
28
249
2
DA 123
38
95
30
—
—
—
286
—
ESF 1,301f
338 394g
347
1,114
1,292
919
5,705
1,360
Food Aidh 78
55
—
50
55
124
51
413
—
HRDF 5
1
11
—
—
—
—
17
—
IDA —
70
50
50
103
232
145
650
—
MRA 28
10
4
—
61
49
—
152
—
Total
Economic-
1,612
540
576
507
1,367
1,727
1,143
7,472
1,362
Related
Grand Total
6,594
1,800
1,703
2,043
3,041
4,462
2,444 22,087
2,965
Sources: U.S. Departments of State, Defense, and Agriculture; U.S. Agency for International Development. Final
obligation and disbursement totals are typical y lower than program account totals.
Abbreviations:
1206:
Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2006 (P.L. 109-163, global
train and equip)
CN:
Counternarcotics Funds (Pentagon budget)
CSF:
Coalition Support Funds (Pentagon budget)
CSH:
Child Survival and Health (Global Health and Child Survival, or GHCS, from FY2010)
DA:
Development Assistance
ESF:
Economic Support Funds
FC:
Section 1206 of the NDAA for FY2008 (P.L. 110-181, Pakistan Frontier Corp train and equip)
FMF:
Foreign Military Financing
HRDF: Human Rights and Democracy Funds
IDA:
International Disaster Assistance (Pakistani earthquake, flood, and internal y displaced persons relief)
IMET:
International Military Education and Training
INCLE: International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (includes border security)
MRA:
Migration and Refugee Assistance (also includes Emergency Migration and Refugee Assistance or
Congressional Research Service
38
Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary
ERMA)
NADR: Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Related (the majority allocated for Pakistan is for
anti-terrorism assistance)
PCF/PCCF: Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund/Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (PCF overseen by
the Pentagon; PCCF overseen by the State Department)
Notes:
a. This funding is “requirements-based”; there are no pre-al ocation data.
b. CSF is Pentagon funding to reimburse Pakistan for its support of U.S. military operations; it is technically not
foreign assistance.
c. Includes $220 million for FY2002 Peacekeeping Operations reported by the State Department.
d. Congress appropriated $1.6 billion for FY2011 and the Administration requested $1.75 billion for FY2012,
in additional CSF for all U.S. coalition partners. Pakistan has in the past received more than three-quarters
of such funds. FY2011-FY2012 may thus include billions of dollars in additional CSF payments to Pakistan.
e. These funds were appropriated in and became available on the final day of FY2009.
f.
Congress authorized Pakistan to use the FY2003 and FY2004 ESF al ocations to cancel a total of about $1.5
billion in concessional debt to the U.S. government.
g. Includes $110 million in Pentagon funds transferred to the State Department for projects in Pakistan’s tribal
areas (P.L. 110-28).
h. P.L. 480 Title I (loans), P.L.480 Title II (grants), and Section 416(b) of the Agricultural Act of 1949, as
amended (surplus agricultural commodity donations). Food aid totals do not include freight costs and total
allocations are unavailable until the fiscal year’s end.
Author Contact Information
K. Alan Kronstadt
Specialist in South Asian Affairs
akronstadt@crs.loc.gov, 7-5415
Congressional Research Service
39