And more bad news

The Pakistani military reacted to the US raid last week by warning it would provoke new attacks by militants in the frontier area. The New York Times quoted the spokesman for the Pakistani military, General Athar Abbas, as warning that the killing of civilians had created a greater risk that tribesmen who have supported the Pakistani soldiers and opposed the Taliban in the past will shift loyalties out of anger. "Such actions are completely counterproductive and can result in huge losses, because it gives the civilians a cause to rise against the Pakistani military," Abbas was quoted as saying.

In an article in the International Herald Tribune in August 2007, Harrison warned that the Pashtun-based radical movement in the northwest "could lead to the unification of the estimated 41 million Pashtuns on both sides of the border, the breakup of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the emergence of a new national entity, Pashtunistan, under radical Islamist leadership".

The National Intelligence Council (NIC), the US intelligence community's focal point for estimating future developments, warned the George W Bush administration last month that a decision to launch commando raids by US troops against al-Qaeda-related targets in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province region would carry a high risk of further destabilizing the Pakistani military and government, according to sources familiar with the intelligence community's response to the issue.