Speaking in Chennai on Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to reassure a worried India that the United States has no plan to cut and run when it comes to Afghanistan, no matter how ready the American public may be to end its longest-ever war.

"I want to be very clear. The United States is committed to Afghanistan and to the region. We will be there," Clinton said, acknowledging India's concern that Pakistani influence on the country will grow while the U.S. presence recedes.  "Yes, we are beginning to withdraw combat troops and transfer responsibility for security to the Afghan people, a process that will be completed in 2014, but drawing down our troops is not the same as leaving or disengaging."

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The United States may soon have the option of washing its hands of Afghanistan. But with an untrustworthy Pakistani military exerting greater influence, India does not.

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The following is adapted from the introduction of a paper released recently by Don Rassler and Vahid Brown for West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, "The Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of al-Qa'ida."

The targeted killing of Osama bin Laden at a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad, Pakistan has raised a number of important questions about the infamous global jihadist's local connections. It has also highlighted how little is really known about the patrons and supporters that enabled al-Qaeda's charismatic leader to hide in plain sight, and communicate with his key lieutenants, for so many years. Al-Qaeda's successful integration into the complex local landscape of Islamist militancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region is not a recent phenomenon, and since the 1980s Bin Laden's organization has been dependent on a Network of local supporters to conduct an increasingly global campaign of violence. Indeed, the inception, execution and continuity of al-Qaeda's global jihad cannot be meaningfully separated from this local dimension, which today remains one of the least studied aspects of the organization's history. The present report aims to address this gap through an analysis of the history and organizational relationships of the Haqqani Network, a single major constant that, for the entirety of al-Qaeda's existence, has shaped the latter's local trajectory in the region.

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The United Nations semi-annual protection of civilians report released Thursday is a chilling rebuttal to illusions that Afghanistan is moving toward greater stability. With nearly 3,600 killed and injured - the highest civilian casualty rate since the war began - the statistics are a grim reality check to over-optimistic reports by international military and civilian leaders that their strategy is successfully disrupting insurgent activities.

As has been true of each of their reports for the last three years, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported an increase in civilian casualties and incidents of violence, across an even wider portion of the country. 1,462 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2011, 15 percent up from the same period in 2010. Almost 20 civilians were killed or injured each day in the first half of the year.

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As Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan president Hamid Karzai were meeting in Tehran last month, Afghans were protesting the firing of hundreds of rockets from Pakistan into Afghan territory. According to the Afghan government, cross-border shelling cost the lives of 42 civilians and wounded many more whilst 12,000 civilians fled for shelter. The Afghan Parliament promptly announced an inquiry into the shelling, an army general resigned and hundreds of ordinary Afghans took to the streets, frustrated by the impotency of a government that proved unable to protect their life or property. The Pakistan army for its part only vaguely denied the allegations, admitting that whilst it has shelled militants in the past, it was not on the magnitude claimed by Afghanistan; in a press briefing, the army acknowledged that it fired "a few accidental rounds", but only in pursuit of Taliban fighters who had fled into Afghanistan. Karzai has until now faced down pressure to respond, though he could be justified in protesting Pakistan's actions; such cross-border incursions and attacks, even if undertaken to combat terrorism, possess slim justification under international law. In practice, however, claiming such a legal right may be of minimal value, when there is little Afghanistan possesses in the way of force to vindicate protect the legal claims it could assert.

International law does not look favorably upon foreign armies firing across borders to suppress insurgents, at least not without strong proof that the other state was internationally responsible, for example, because it tolerated or supported the insurgents. However, the law is still evolving on whether Pakistan would have been able to claim a right of self-defense in retaliating without making a specific claim about Afghan complicity or support. As such a determination is presently only speculative; we would have to assume that an international wrong may have been committed.

Of course, such a legal analysis might be necessary to determine whether Pakistan is in breach of its international law obligations and whether the use of force was justified, but a resort to legalism will not protect Afghanistan from foreign aggression, now or in the future. Karzai would therefore be wise to heed recent events as a grim portent of things to come.

In realpolitik terms, Pakistan has credibly signaled to its weaker neighbor that it possesses the ability and will to use overwhelming force across borders when necessary, and that such a disparity will shape their bilateral relationship going forward, particularly after the foreign powers depart in 2014.

These incidents have also clearly demonstrated Afghanistan's inability to defend itself. The country's political posturing appeared hollow when no one took seriously Kabul's rhetoric that it will not respond with military force.  Similarly, Karzai's statement late last month that NATO had fired back against Pakistan was equally unconvincing. What incentive would NATO have to repel raids that end up hurting locals and have no direct effect on NATO's mission, and would only further inflame already tense relations with Pakistan?

Since 2001, international forces have provided Afghanistan with "sovereignty insurance," without specifying an expiration date, permitting the Afghan government to mistakenly believe that its sovereignty would be perpetually guaranteed against violations. Just as subsidies reinforce inefficiency in domestic industries, this insurance led the Afghan government to engage in the self-defeating fallacy that it needed to do precious little to develop its own defense capabilities. It was this moral hazard, for example, that encouraged Karzai to boldly claim in 2008 that he would send Afghan soldiers across the border into Pakistani territory to kill militants if Pakistan did not reign in the Taliban.

Naturally, as subsidized industries end up suffering in the face of competition when protectionist measures are eventually withdrawn, the events of the past few weeks should have reminded Karzai that Afghanistan will also soon face similar challenges to its territorial integrity once the insurance provided by the West expires. In fact, the history of Afghanistan is a recurring narrative of how foreign powers cannot be relied on to protect that state.

Perhaps it is not too late for Karzai to realize that unless Afghanistan develops a credible means of deterring its neighbors, sovereignty will remain a practical fiction, even if it is a legal reality. Due to the free movement of militants along the border, future violations on the pretext of terrorism are not only likely but inevitable. Therefore, rather than placing faith in NATO or hope that Pakistan or in fact any of Afghanistan's neighbors are altruistic enough to respect Afghan sovereignty, the government needs to adopt a much more honest outlook on its security needs.

This means two things: first, Afghanistan needs to adopt a realistic perception of its geographical handicap and ensure that it develops a military capability that can act as a reasonable deterrent against its neighbors - at a minimum, this should aim to significantly increase the costs to any states wishing to trespass Afghan borders. Although, NATO and the U.S. have been training the Afghan army and police, the Afghan National Army is much too young and ill-equipped to achieve self-sufficiency in defending the Afghan state against domestic attacks, let alone a territorial challenge from a neighbor that boasts the sixth largest army on the globe. As such, it is highly unlikely that reasonable deterrence can be developed by Afghanistan before the final draw down of U.S. troops in 2014.

So as Afghanistan develops such self-defense capabilities, it needs to humbly appreciate its weaker bargaining position and make efforts not simply to seek peace with its neighbors but to negotiate international treaties with them that oblige each party to reduce cross-border incursions and accept legal responsibility for any such violations. Most importantly, this needs to be done when the Afghan government still has some bargaining clout remaining; in other words, before the U.S. troops go back home.

Negotiating such an international treaty will prove no easy task, because such treaties can only work if borders are well defined - something that is not the case in the region. Any attempt to demarcate precise borders along the infamous Durand Line is likely to rekindle ethnic and nationalistic feelings, or dormant political debates, that may further weaken the Afghan central government. Nevertheless, long-term security in the region cannot be achieved without first overcoming this difficult step. Unless this is done, any international agreements will be difficult to implement.

The only other alternative is that the U.S. underwrites Afghan sovereignty for the foreseeable future, as part of a broader strategic framework with Afghanistan. However, this type of guarantee could serve to further perpetuate Afghan dependence, and require the commitment of vast resources for a goal that may provide only incidental benefit to the United States.

Afghanistan's neighbors will also need an incentive to negotiate on this issue. The Pakistani army in particular is not used to treating Afghanistan as a sovereign entity due to past "strategic depth" calculations, and it would need very strong reasons to entertain such a treaty.  U.S. military pressure, domestic citizens' frustration with terrorism and promises of foreign aid could convince them otherwise. However, the single biggest factor that could help in bringing them to the negotiating table is the clear and dangerous realization that if such cross-border incursions are undertaken against Afghanistan on the pretext of combatting militancy, then it may be difficult to deny that right to India if at some point it sees fit to retaliate against Pakistan-based terrorists. An agreement to protect Afghanistan's borders could then be the start of a broader framework to bring some level of security to South Asia's volatile borders.

Dawood Ahmed is a doctoral candidate in international law at the University of Chicago.  He has previously practiced as an attorney in the London offices of the international law firm, Linklaters.

United States-Pakistan relations have been in free fall since the successful raid by Special Operations Forces on May 2nd  killed Osama bin Laden and several others in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Now an investigation by the Guardian has revealed details of an intelligence operation in the months prior to the raid that attempted to use a fake vaccination campaign to confirm the terrorist leader's whereabouts. The operation, which reportedly failed, attempted to use the pretext of a free Hepatitis-B vaccination to collect DNA on those living inside Bin Laden's suspected compound, hoping to match it with the DNA of his relatives. However, while few details about the operation are known, one thing is certain:  its existence will cause serious damage to legitimate domestic and international health campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Immunization programs in Pakistan already have a hard time convincing many to get vaccinated. In 2007, a polio-vaccination campaign in northern Pakistan failed to immunize 160,000 children, due to rumors that the vaccine was an American attempt to sterilize children. The rumors were at least partially spread by local clerics, who claimed that the polio-immunization drive was "a conspiracy of the Jews and Christians to stunt the population growth of Muslims." Some vaccination teams were even beaten after locals heard the rumors. In another case, a Pakistani doctor was killed in 2007 after working to fight anti-vaccine propaganda in Bajaur agency. And the risk to health workers has increased drastically in recent years. According to the Aid Worker Security Database, which tracks attacks against national and international humanitarians, only two aid workers working in Pakistan reported being the victim of attacks in 2004,  while by 2010 that number had risen to 28. Furthermore, the Red Cross claimed this month to have observed a spike in attacks against humanitarians, fueled in part by anger over the Abbottabad raid. Simply put, it has never been more dangerous to be a health worker in Pakistan.

Similar distrust towards health workers exists in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters have always had an uneasy relationship with vaccination teams and aid workers, suspecting they are government or Western spies. In 2007, Taliban fighters kidnapped one vaccination worker in Uruzgan province during a polio-vaccination campaign. They beat him and only released him after he promised to stop vaccinating children. It is not just vaccination efforts that are harmed by the rumors: less than a year ago a group of international and Afghan aid workers were hiking back from a three-week medical mission in the Hindu Kush mountains when they were captured and executed by gunmen. A Taliban spokesman took credit for the attack, claiming that the aid workers were spies.

Insecurity has a serious negative effect on health care in rural communities. The greater the personal risks, the greater the appeal for both national and international health workers to stay within the safety of major cities, venturing out only in large convoys. This so-called "bunkerization" diminishes the ability of health campaigns to target rural communities -- often those most in need of primary health care. The best way to overcome bunkerization is through building relationships with communities and local elites, allowing for the free movement of health workers in a region -- exactly the kind of thing undermined by the CIA's apparent operation.

Given the precarious relationship between health workers, militants, and civilians in many areas of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the existence of a fake vaccination program ran by the CIA is likely all the evidence many need to accuse all vaccinators and health workers of spying. The end result will be fewer families willing to have their children vaccinated, and more attacks on health workers providing any manner of medical care to communities. Some people will no doubt say that the operation was a reasonable and necessary attempt to confirm bin Laden's location, and that nobody was directly put at risk as a result. Tell that to the next vaccination team in Abbottabad.

Christopher R. Albon is writer and researcher on public health in armed conflict, health diplomacy, and human security. Writes at Conflict Health, UN Dispatch, the US Naval Institute, and elsewhere.

Ahmad Wali Karzai's death comes at a time when the U.S. is talking of withdrawal from Afghanistan, negotiations are being attempted with the Taliban, and a series of assassinations have eliminated some of Afghanistan's most capable military leaders. President Hamid Karzai, true to Afghan tradition, put on a brave face at his press conference with French President Sarkozy shortly after hearing the news. But he showed signs of strain; the mood behind the scenes in the Arg, Kabul's Presidential Palace, must be a grim one. 

This is not only because the death of any man's brother is a hard thing to bear, but because this brother was an important part of the Karzai dynasty. Ahmad Wali's militias and his revenue-raising networks - widely believed to include drugs trafficking -- and his links with the CIA, were a significant part of the Karzai power-base in their home region of Loya Kandahar. "No-one can be as powerful as he was," one friend of mine from Kandahar opined; "he had tribal support, money and power."  

Some experts have suggested that this is precisely the opportunity that has now opened up, for a re-arrangement of political power in the Kandahar region that would re-enfranchise individuals and tribal groups alienated by internecine conflict, poor government outreach, and active exclusion from patronage and support networks. Others suggest that another powerful individual is bound at least partially to fill the gap -- someone such as Aref Noorzai, who was Ahmad Wali's sister-in-law's husband, and whose brother is already on the Kandahar provincial council (with plenty of other relatives in strategic positions, too); or Gul Agha Sherzai, the former governor of the province, whose family also have big business interests there. The third alternative is chaos. Ahmad Wali's networks of armed men, after all, will still exist - with or without an official sponsor. Big competitors, trying to move onto Ahmad Wali's turf, may increase the internecine conflict rather than reduce it, which in turn will make it easier for the Taliban to continue to encroach on Kandahar City and its environs.

But perhaps the bigger question is: What effect will the death of President Karzai's most controversial, but also apparently highly trusted and powerful younger brother-cum-lieutenant, have on the President's morale and motivation? Will it make him seek revenge, if the Taliban truly are responsible? Or-with or without a peace deal with the Taliban, which seems a more distant prospect now as the Afghan state visibly weakens -- will it make him keener to make an exit, when his term ends in 2014?

Gerard Russell was in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2009.

In January of this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai yielded to domestic and international pressure and endorsed the seating of the new Afghan parliament against the recommendation of a Special Court he created to evaluate election fraud claims. Few would have predicted then that six months later Karzai's Court would bring the country to the brink of complete political collapse.

Afghanistan's 2010 parliamentary elections were yet another reminder of the extraordinary difficulty of administering elections in the midst of a wide scale counter-insurgency effort. Like the 2009 presidential elections, the September 2010 Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, elections, were marred by widespread fraud, with more than a million votes ultimately invalidated. Despite the pervasiveness of fraud, the process did offer some hope for the nascent democracy. Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) showed strong signs that despite enormous external pressure, it could exercise the necessary independence and impartiality that observers felt was lacking in 2009.

The results of the election were not favorable to Karzai, who fought throughout the process for ways to advantage his political allies. In the pre-election period this included unsuccessfully advocating, against the recommendation of the IEC, for the opening of 87 additional polling stations in some of the country's most insecure districts. After election day, President Karzai expressed his dissatisfaction with the results from Ghazni province, where Hazara candidates swept the seats despite the presence of a Pashtun majority. The Special Court would become President Karzai's favorite instrument to remind the new members of parliament that it was he who truly controlled their political fate.

Last year, after Afghanistan's Electoral Complains Commission (ECC) referred hundreds of cases to the attorney general (AG) to review whether candidates had committed criminal offenses, the AG decided to submit 232 candidates to Afghanistan's Supreme Court for adjudication, despite no provision in the electoral law authorizing it to do so. In the weeks that followed, it became clear that the AG was not guided by a legal framework but motivated by a preferred political outcome. Indeed, the AG's office was outspoken in voicing its desire that the results of the elections should be invalidated entirely.

On the 21^st of December, the Supreme Court took the next step by recommending that President Karzai establish a Special Court to further investigate and adjudicate the claims of disaffected, defeated candidates. On the 26^th of December, President Karzai approved the creation of a Special Court through presidential decree and named Sadiqullah Haqiq, head of the Kabul Court of Appeals, to lead the court. According to the president and the Supreme Court, the Special Court would begin investigating results, and would have the authority to make changes to the results of the September elections.

Shortly after the creation of the court both the IEC and ECC disavowed the court and reaffirmed their position that the authority to administer elections and announce results was the sole duty of the IEC and adjudication of complaints was that of the ECC. The international community publicly supported the independence of the country's legitimate electoral institutions and called on all actors to respect their decisions.

Often, it is ambiguity in the Afghan legal framework that causes such political impasses. In this instance, however, the law is clear. The constitution, through Article 156, establishes the IEC as the sole authority for the administration of elections and grants it exclusive authority for the announcement and certification of election results. Neither the constitution nor the electoral law sanctions the creation of a special court to review election results. Nor does either document grant the Supreme Court or Attorney General the authority to engage in electoral affairs.

The idea for the creation of the court likely did not originate with the Supreme Court, but directly from within the president's office; rather, during Democracy International's observation of the process, many well-connected Afghans reported to us that the idea came from two of President Karzai's own legal advisors, who were seeking out ways to alter the results of the September elections that had strengthened opposition to Karzai in the parliament.

After months of the Special Court reportedly conducting re-counts and investigations throughout the provinces, it finally announced a ruling on June 22 in which it declared that 62 sitting members of the parliament should be replaced. The decision launched the country into a political crisis and elicited an immediate reaction from parliament, which voted for the removal of the attorney general and six members of the Supreme Court. The crisis reached new proportions last Wednesday, when the parliament began debating the impeachment of the president, who has reportedly proposed his own list of 17 candidates to the IEC who should be immediately certified as winners. The instability has, according to Afghan news sources, motivated members of parliament to begin carrying firearms into sessions of parliament, and has resulted in physical altercations between MPs.

The authority to arbitrate constitutionality lies with Afghanistan's Independent Commission for the Oversight of the Constitution. In this instance, however, the commission has only contributed to the confusion. In January, the commission reportedly met with a group of MPs and expressed its opinion that the establishment of the Special Court was illegal. This was reported widely at the time in Afghan newspapers. Just last week, in an apparent about face, the constitutional commission issued a decision stating that the IEC should cooperate with any bodies investigating election issues. To complicate matters further, a member of the constitutional commission appeared on TOLO television (the nation's most popular political news outlet) the next day and declared the Special Court illegal and explained that the decision of the commission had been misunderstood.

The implications of the Special Court's ruling are serious, and the willingness of the president to embrace its legitimacy threatens to undermine more than just the parliament. If the court's decision is ultimately respected and the makeup of the parliament is altered, the legitimacy and credibility of the IEC and future Afghan elections will forever be tainted. Candidates and their supporters are unlikely to respect the authority of an election commission whose decisions they know can be trumped by ad-hoc courts. In addition, if the Special Court brings criminal charges against sitting parliamentarians, it will also undermine the authority of Afghanistan's legitimate judicial bodies.  At a time when a country struggling to establish robust democratic institutions needs support from its executive, that executive seems all too willing to endorse the defanging of those institutions.

The political implications are even more serious. If Karzai's Court is successful at shaking up the composition of the lower house, the effects could be felt far beyond the body's votes on the president's initiatives. The president would then likely have a parliament more amenable to his call for a Loya Jirga, a powerful traditional body that has the authority to amend the constitution. The current parliament has called the president's plans for a Loya Jirga unconstitutional, on the basis that chairpersons of district councils, who are constitutionally mandated delegates to a Loya Jirga, have not yet been elected. Not only would President Karzai likely have the support in the lower house to move forward with his plans, he would also have 62 more votes in favor of whatever agenda he decides to pursue within the jirga, including a possible constitutional amendment to allow him to seek a third term.

With no clear ending in sight, the president, by supporting the actions of a Special Court with no legal authority, has brought the country to the brink of political collapse. What happens next is anyone's guess. The IEC has so far shown resolve against Karzai and has reportedly presented him a plan to solve the impasse. While details of the plan have yet to be released, there are rumors circulating that it would require President Karzai to declare the Special Court illegal and to honor the independence of the IEC and the credibility of its decisions. In return, the IEC would agree to review some previous decisions of the ECC, which it believes is allowed under Article 65 of Afghanistan's Electoral Law.

If the president disagrees with the IEC's plan, he could always attempt to replace the leadership of the IEC, which is within his constitutional rights, and thus pave the way for the implementation of the Special Court's decision. This would not, however, prevent the likely violent backlash from the 62 parliamentarians the Special Court is threatening to remove. Perhaps a more likely outcome is for the AG to circumvent the IEC altogether and begin implementing the Court's decisions himself, as he has promised recently to do. This would likely entail arrests of sitting MPs and would undoubtedly lead to political chaos and possibly violence.

The crisis created by Karzai's Court underscores the necessity for a genuine Afghan led dialogue on democratic reform. Options must be explored to strengthen the independence and resilience of Afghanistan's democratic institutions. To achieve any level of democratic sustainability, Afghan politicians must operate on a stronger democratic foundation, one developed with the support of civil society and the very institutions President Karzai is attempting to delegitimize (the IEC, the ECC, and the lower house of parliament). If the international community and the Government of Afghanistan do not begin to take democratic reform seriously, a strong democratic Afghanistan will become even more of a fantasy than it is now.

Jed Ober is Director of Programs at Democracy International. Throughout 2010, he served as Democracy International's Chief of Staff in Kabul where he oversaw the largest international election observation mission to Afghanistan's 2010 parliamentary elections. Democracy International's final observation report can be downloaded at www.democracyinternational.com.

President Barack Obama has made his decision, and by the end of this year 10,000 U.S. soldiers will leave Afghanistan. By September 2012, 23,000 more shall do the same. And to ensure that Afghanistan remains secure, some tens of thousands of additional Afghan security forces will be trained by the U.S., with diplomatic efforts will follow. But whether or not the American withdrawal and the likely ensuing deal with the Taliban ends the conflict, it is certain that the consequences will have a major impact on Pakistan.

After the last American exit from Afghanistan following the Soviet war in that country, Arab jihadists took the Afghan mujahideen under their umbrella, and set up shop in Pakistan, an outcome that, given the current climate of instability and militancy, could easily happen again. As the Brookings Institution scholar Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown said about the current conflict, "an unstable Afghanistan will be like an ulcer bleeding into an already extremely unstable, extremely hollowed out-Pakistan and will encourage only the worst tendencies in Pakistan. This will severely compromise our strategic objectives." History shows that the type of substance this ulcer bleeds exacerbates pre-existing problems in parts of the country, something that is especially true in the bustling port city of Karachi.

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To say that the peace process in Afghanistan was hardly running smoothly before Tuesday's audacious attack on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel would be an understatement. As one State Department official said earlier this month at a private meeting with Afghan leaders, "There is no peace process yet."

Tuesday evening's attack just raised the stakes even further for the nascent negotiations process. And if talks looked tenuous before, they are downright fragile now.

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This week, President Barack Obama fulfilled a promise he made to the American people in 2009 to begin responsibly ending the war in Afghanistan. His decision to withdraw 33,000 troops from the country over the next year came from a position of strength, thanks in large part to our men and women in uniform and their civilian counterparts who helped break the Taliban's momentum.

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Women in Afghanistan will be watching particularly closely to what President Barack Obama says this evening about the drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan, as well as watching how he says it. A group of Afghan women leaders came to Washington last week on a whirlwind policy talk-a-thon with the State Department, Pentagon, White House, and congressional leaders. On the women's minds: What kind of peace process will emerge in Afghanistan, and what kind of role will women have in an eventual arrangement with the Taliban that once oppressed them so brutally?

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One month after acknowledging that al-Qaeda Central's (AQC) founder and leader Osama bin Laden had been killed by the U.S. military, the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP) this week issued a written statement eulogizing him and threatening revenge attacks on the U.S. and Pakistani governments (they also expressed their support this morning for al-Qaeda's new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri). The TTP, an umbrella movement for dozens of militant outfits operating in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber-Puktunkhwa province has already carried out a number of deadly attacks throughout the country since mid-May, including the brazen May 23 attack on the Pakistani Navy's Mehran base in Karachi. With estimated numbers of its fighters in the thousands, the TTP and other Pakistani militant groups based in the Punjab are arguably among the best-placed of AQC's allies to launch "revenge attacks" in bin Laden's name. The statement's distribution online via the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), a long-established transnational jihadi media and translation network, is significant, suggesting that the TTP continues to embrace elements of both transnational militancy and domestic insurgency.

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Just days after U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen confirmed that the Pakistani military had agreed to launch a major offensive in North Waziristan, Pakistani government and army officials have equivocated about the timing and breadth of the operation, or even if it would be undertaken in the first place. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's most recent remarks suggest that the government would make its own determination and would not allow anyone to force it into any decisions about an eventual operation. Although military commanders had previously described the possible undertaking as being "selective" and "intelligence led," Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the Corps Commander in charge of operations in Khyber-Puktunkhwa and adjacent tribal regions, Lt. General Asif Yasin Malik, have both asserted that there were no immediate plans to launch an offensive.

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