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| | GEO Pakistan | | Bush allows raids into Pakistan: report | Updated at: 0048 PST, Friday, September 12, 2008
 WASHINGTON: US President George W. Bush has secretly approved orders allowing US forces to conduct ground operations in Pakistan without that government's prior approval, a report said Wednesday citing senior US officials.
A US newspaper reported that the July move allowing Special Operations forces to carry out assaults within the borders of a key "war on terror" ally marked a turn for the Bush administration which has struggled with Islamabad over how to combat Al-Qaeda and a resurgent Taliban.
"The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable," a senior American official told the paper on condition of anonymity. "We have to be more assertive. Orders have been issued."
White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe declined to comment on the report, and Bush aides have refused to speak publicly for days about media accounts of ground and missile attacks inside Pakistan.
According to the newspaper, US officials say they will notify Pakistan when the United States conducts operations on the country's territory, but that they will not ask for permission.
The newspaper reported that US officials have been debating for months whether to authorize such forays against Islamic militants in Pakistan, following US intelligence warnings that Al-Qaeda and other militant groups were consolidating their hold on northwestern Pakistan.
The report comes a week after a cross-border raid by US-led coalition troops based in neighboring Afghanistan the left 15 people dead.
Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani Wednesday strongly criticized the raids and said the country would defend its sovereignty "at all cost."
"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan," he said in a statement.
He said there was no "agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," according to the statement issued by the military's media wing.
Kayani regretted the civilian deaths in the September 4 raid and said such "reckless actions only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area." |  |
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