D.
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An operation tied up with the US elections
Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad
The army casualty figures are rising in South Waziristan while resentment against the operation is spreading to areas beyond the agency. From June 2002 till the second week of January only 16 army men had died in action. During the operation launched on March 16, the toll had reached to 26 in less than a week. The Brigade headquarters in Wana have come under attack several times and a number of checkposts targeted with automatic weapons and rockets causing injuries to several soldiers. Wana camp, housing the offices of the political Agent has also been fired at.
[...]
Those in Islamabad are being prodded to produce something that the Bush administration can present before the voters as a dazzling achievement to help win the Presidential elections. Islamabad is being required to get a high value target like Osama Bin Laden or Al-Zawaheri within the next few weeks irrespective of the price the citizens have to pay. The army is also being pushed into action without proper intelligence gathering. Government officials now concede they didn't know there were so many foreign militants in South Waziristan. Nor were they aware of the level of sophistication and the military capability of those they were taking on. The high value target referred to by the President was found to have escaped through the army cordon because those who planned the operation had no knowledge about a mile long tunnel leading from the compounds of two absconding militants to a dry river bed.
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