Washington: A new key Pakistan army offensive is in the offing to flush out top Taliban and Al-Qaida terrorists from their mountainous sanctuaries in Waziristan area and US will provide intelligence and surveillance back up for it.
The operation will target the Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, but may also be aimed to smoke out Al-Qaida commanders Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman-al-Zawahiri and other top operatives, who have not surfaced for the last eight years since 9/11, a top Pentagon official said.
"Pakistan army has planned separate military campaign in south Waziristan," the official said on condition of anonymity as officials are barred from making public any military plan before it is launched.
And the Americans and NATO forces could put matching pressure on militants from the Afghanistan side, once the offensive takes off, the US official said.
The Pakistan and US military planners have drawn up a plan to strike at Mehsud as his activities inside Pakistan are posing a serious internal threat to the government. The Tehrik-e Taliban chief has been linked to a wave of suicide bombing, which have rocked both sides of the Pak-Afghan borders, including the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Pentagon officials have hinted that the offensive, to be spearheaded by the Pakistani army, will be "more broader" than the current campaign ongoing in Swat, Buner and Dir areas in NWFP, which are adjacent to south Waziristan.
Officials did not give any timeframe for the Waziristan campaign, but said initial phases might have already begun. There have been widespread speculation about the planned offensives but no words from the government in Islamabad.
Noting that Waziristan has a large concentration of terrorist elements, specially big chunk of Al-Qaida members, the top Pentagon official said "so an offensive, there not necessarily the sole instrument we need to defeat Al-Qaida, certainly can play and important role."
While acknowledging the Pakistani plan, the official said a central element of the new "US going forward strategy is to have pressure on both sides of the border", apparently indicating that when the Pakistan army pushes into Waziristan, US and NATO forces could apply pressure from the Afghan side. As part of the element of the strategy to look at Afghanistan and Pakistan as an integrated theater of operation, is to have mutual reinforcing efforts, he said.
"The Border Coordination Centres provide some of that role, exchange of information, but also ongoing operations on both sides to do that," he said.