US fears Taliban gains in Pakistan

Weeks after a cease-fire in the northwest Swat Valley gave the Taliban free rein to impose Sharia religious law, Pakistani officials reported yesterday that the Taliban were extending their presence to an adjacent district known as Buner, just 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. US officials fear the tribal border areas with Afghanistan could be a base for Al Qaeda to plot further attacks against the United States.

The Swat Valley cease-fire is jeopardizing the central government's ability to stop infiltration into other parts of the country and is allowing the Taliban to operate with virtual impunity in the Afgahn border area, where their followers are stepping up attacks against American and Afghan troops, warned Army General David Petraeus.

"There are concerns in many of the political communities within Pakistan, and they're all looking very hard at what the im plications of the agreement in Swat will be long-term. . . . That threat is significant," Petraeus, the top US commander in the region, told reporters after a speech at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government on Tuesday evening.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, testifying for the first time before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the "existential threat" posed by Taliban extremists in Pakistan should not be underestimated, painting the picture of a nuclear-armed state that is in danger of collapsing.

"Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of Americans and the world," said Clinton, who asserted that the Pakistani government is "basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists" with the cease-fire, which was approved by Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari.

She also urged Pakistani-Americans to "speak out more forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents" who she said have now advanced to territory that is "within hours" of the Pakistani capital.

Spokesmen for the movement have said they would welcome Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other terrorists to the Swat Valley, where the cease-fire took effect in February after a bloody struggle with Pakistani security forces.

But Pakistan's ambassador to the United States yesterday disputed that the government had "abdicated" to the militants, comparing the agreement with deals the Iraqi government made with insurgents to control violence. He also downplayed the significance of the Taliban moving into Buner and disputed that they are growing in strength, more than seven years after US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that sheltered the 9/11 terrorists.

Husain Haqqani, who is on leave as a Boston University professor, said on CNN that Pakistan recognizes the Taliban as a dangerous threat. "The United States and Pakistan are partners, and in that partnership, I think, together, we can deal with the Taliban," he said.

The Obama administration's strategy in the region includes $1.5 billion a year in additional aid to Pakistan's government to help it take on the militants, who have been blamed for a series of deadly attacks inside that nation. The president is also dispatching at least 17,000 more US combat troops to southern Afghanistan, and last month he announced he is sending 4,000 additional troops to train the Afghan military and hundreds of civilian advisers to help the Afghan government. Those reinforcements will bring the total American force in Afghanistan to nearly 60,000, the most ever.

But Senator John F. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is questioning the Obama administration's policy, saying in an interview published yesterday in USA Today that "Pakistan is in a moment of peril. And I believe there is not in place yet an adequate policy or plan to deal with it."

Though the Massachusetts Democrat later sought to clarify that he wasn't criticizing Obama, Kerry also advised the administration to stop using the term "Af-Pak" to describe a unified strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, because "I think it does a disservice to both countries and to the policy."

Kerry appeared to be at odds with some of Obama's top policy advisers on the region, including special envoy Richard Holbrooke, who insist the two countries' fortunes are intertwined and that US strategy must address both simultaneously. Obama plans to meet with Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on May 6-7 at the White House.

"Instability in Pakistan threatens our efforts in Afghanistan," Michelle Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told a Washington think tank on Tuesday. "Failure in Afghanistan would increase the risk of failure in Pakistan. And recognizing this interaction must be central to every dimension of our strategy."

Yesterday, the threat from militant forces on both sides of the border was on display as the Taliban in the Swat Valley expanded their reach further in Pakistan and another top US general told Pentagon reporters that the Taliban were growing in strength in southern Afghanistan.

The Islamic movement yesterday began patrolling roads and broadcasting sermons in Buner, according to the Associated Press, which quoted local officials saying that militants have warned barbers to stop shaving men's beards, have established a major base in the village of Sultan, and have seized control of of the shrine to a famed Sufi saint, Pir Baba.

Petraeus said that despite the growing signs that the Swat Valley deal with the Taliban is destabilizing, Pakistan's leadership appears to fully appreciate the threat the militants pose. He pointed to a series of steps that the Pakistani government is taking to address it, including developing a more robust counterinsurgency capacity within its security forces.

"I think it's hugely important to remember the considerable sacrifice that Pakistani security forces have made in this struggle against the extremists in their country," the general added. "They've sustained very significant losses."

Another top US commander, Major General Michael S. Tucker, said yesterday that American forces were locked in a "stalemate" with insurgents in southern Afghanistan, where he said that 80 percent of the insurgent attacks are now occurring.

Until the US reinforcements arrive, Tucker said by telephone from Afghanistan, "We just simply do not have enough forces to address the needs of the people down there to set the conditions for governance to take hold."

Farah Stockman of the Globe staff contributed to this report. MacQuarrie reported from Cambridge; Bender reported from Washington and can be reached at bender@globe.com.