With aid conditions set, Pakistan sharpens tone

When U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke arrives in Pakistan this week he will be publicly feted for President Barack Obama’s pledge of massive, long-term aid for a wobbling nation critical to America’s strategy for turning around its the war in Afghanistan.

But the money doesn’t come without conditions, and Pakistan – while eager for the funds to shore up its faltering economy and develop its ability to counter insurgents – is honing a list of questions that highlight significant differences over the right way to combat al-Qaida and its growing band of regional allies, officials and analysts say.

Holbrooke, Washington’s special representative for the region, is expected in Islamabad on Monday, the first high-level U.S. visitor since Obama labeled Pakistan’s border region “the most dangerous place in the world” for America because of the terrorists it houses, “almost certainly” including Osama bin Laden.

But Obama has warned that the pledge of $7.5 billion in civilian aid over five years will only be forthcoming if Pakistan demonstrates its commitment to uprooting al-Qaida and other violent extremists – comments that have done nothing for the often-strained relationship.

Islamabad points out the hundreds of Pakistani troops killed by militant attacks or in a series of ill-fated operations along the Afghan border since Pakistan dropped its support for the Taliban in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

“We have sacrificed much more than they have sacrificed,” Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Thursday. “We have sacrificed our soldiers. We have sacrificed our economy. What else do they want?”

What Washington says it wants is better cooperation from Pakistan’s powerful but reluctant security establishment, especially the pivotal Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

After months of leaks to U.S. newspapers, Holbrooke, U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen and other American officials have in the past week gone public with allegations that the ISI has sustained links with – and perhaps secretly aided – some militant groups, a charge vehemently denied by Islamabad.