By Laura Rozen

In May 2007, Pakistani government troops and intelligence officers opened fire on a group of American military officers and Afghan officials they had been meeting with to discuss a border dispute, killing one U.S. officer, Maj. Larry J. Bauguess, and wounding three others. Then American and Pakistani officials hushed up the incident, the New York Times' Carlotta Gall reports, in a detailed reconstruction of the May 14, 2007, ambush at Teri Mangal, in northwest Pakistan:

"The border meeting was called, and a small group of Americans and Afghans - 12 men in total - flew by helicopters to Teri Mangal, just inside Pakistan, to try to resolve the [border post] dispute," Gall writes. A five-hour meeting between the Americans, Afghans and Paksitani officials ensued.

"Then, just as the American and Afghan officials were climbing into vehicles provided to take them the short distance to a helicopter landing zone, a Pakistani soldier opened fire with an automatic rifle, pumping multiple rounds from just 5 or 10 yards away into an American officer, Maj. Larry J. Bauguess Jr., killing him almost instantly," Gall reports.

Bauguess, 36, with the 82nd Airborne Division, was married and father of two young daughters.

Three other American military officers and their Afghan translator were wounded in the three-way assault by their Pakistani hosts.
The May 14, 2007 attack in Teri Mangal was subsequently "kept quiet by Washington, which for much of a decade has seemed to play down or ignore signals that Pakistan would pursue its own interests, or even sometimes behave as an enemy," Gall writes.

Such discretion has increasingly gone by the wayside, however. Top American officials - most notably outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen - have recently stepped up public accusations of Pakistani collaboration with the insurgents attacking American personnel and facilities in Afghanistan, including the militants who carried out attacks this month on the American embassy in Kabul and NATO's Afghan headquarters that wounded 77 people.

Pakistan's military will not take action against a militant group Washington blames for an attack against its embassy in Kabul, despite mounting American pressure to do so, a Pakistani newspaper has reported.

Pakistan's Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani met with his top commanders in a "special" meeting to discuss the security situation, the military said, as the war of words with the United States escalated.

That emergency meeting came against the backdrop of sharp US allegations that the Pakistani army's powerful spy agency, ISI, supported the Haqqani militant group Washington blames for the recent attack on its embassy and other targets in Kabul.

The commanders agreed to resist US demands for a Pakistani army offensive in North Waziristan, where the United States believes the Haqqani network is based, the Express Tribune reported, quoting an unnamed military official.

"We have already conveyed to the US that Pakistan cannot go beyond what it has already done," the official told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.
The United States has long pressed its ally Pakistan to pursue the Haqqani network, one of the most lethal Taliban-allied Afghan groups fighting Western forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan denies it supports the Haqqanis and says its army is too stretched battling its own Taliban insurgency to go after the network, which has an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 fighters.

Analysts say the Pakistani military could suffer heavy casualties if it were to attempt a crackdown on the group, which has developed extensive alliances with other militant organizations in the region, and has mastered the rugged mountain terrain.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, who heads the group, says it no longer needs sanctuaries in Pakistan, and it feels safe operating in Afghanistan.

Two weeks ago, militants launched an assault against the US embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul. US officials blamed those attacks on the Haqqani network.

US officials said there was intelligence, including intercepted phone calls, suggesting those attackers were in communication with people connected to Pakistan's principal spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.

In the most blunt remarks by a US official since Pakistan joined the US-led war on militancy in 2001, the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, testified before the US Senate that the Haqqani militant network is a "veritable arm" of the ISI.

He also for the first time held Islamabad responsible for the Kabul attack, saying Pakistan provided support for that assault.

The Pakistan government as well as their Army rejected the allegations. Last week, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani rejected US allegations as a sign of American "confusion and policy disarray."

In Washington, DC, a leading US Senator has indicated Congress would support American military action against Pakistan amid growing clamor in Washington for a punitive response against a two-timing ally even as ties between the two countries grow more toxic by the hour.

While a television journalist openly described Pakistan's allegedly proxy attack on the US embassy in Kabul as an "act of war" to Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's face, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told a Sunday talk show that "The sovereign nation of Pakistan is engaging in hostile acts against the United States and our ally Afghanistan that must cease."

"I will leave it up to the experts, but if the experts believe that we need to elevate our response, they will have a lot of bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, Graham, a South Carolina senator who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" in remarks that were seen as a call for military strikes against Pakistan.

The sharp escalation of US rhetoric came even as Pakistan defiantly said it would not take any action against the so-called Haqqani group, which was described as a "veritable fighting arm" of the Pakistani spy agency by a top US Gneral, and has been held responsible for the several terrorist attacks on US and its allies in Afghanistan. Following a meeting of Pakistani Army core commanders over the weekend, Pakistan indicated that acting against the Haqqani group would be against its national interests which involved establishing a foothold in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal as part of its "strategic depth" strategy, mainly to forestall Indian influence.
But a growing number of western and even Pakistani analysts have said such a strategy is foolhardy given Afghan revulsion of Pakistan and the Talibanist worldview that led to them hosting Al Qaeda, leading to 9/11. Some of them are now concluding that the Pakistani Army and ISI's terrorist policy has the sanction of the civilian government and are demanding stronger action against Islamabad from US and its allies.

The influential writer Christopher Hitchens, among them, invoked Joseph Heller's Catch-22 to describe ISI as "the most adroit double-dealing profiteer from terrorism in the entire region." Maintaining that Pakistan was in breach of post 9/11 U.N. resolution 1368 on terrorism, which states that those found to be "supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held equally accountable," Hitchens said Pakistan risked being identified as a terrorist nation.

"This indictment would easily stretch to cover another gross violation of international law and diplomatic immunity, in that the ISI was also found culpable in the destruction of the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008," Hitchen reminded Washington, which did not stop bankrolling Pakistan despite multiple terrorist attacks on Indian interests over the years.

Amid such scathing commentary, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, in interviews to television networks, defiantly and obdurately stuck to the Pakistani military's pro-forma denials and its script that it will go to any extent to preserve its perceived equity and strategic interests in Afghanistan, even if it meant going up against US and its allies, and international isolation.

Seeking cover against US anger, Pakistan also took public comfort in the visit of a senior Chinese leader to Islamabad and played up its proposed energy pipeline with Iran. While some analysts see this as Islamabad's ploy to raise its price for eventually being bought out by US, there is growing recognition and weariness in Washington that Pakistan is playing America for suckers. Hitchens said in his Slate commentary that at the very least Pakistan must lose access to US Treasury.

Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst with the Heritage Foundation, recommended a graduated series of responses in the event that Pakistan maintains its defiant attitude and refuses to take action against the perpetrators of the attacks on the US embassy. Among them: Suspend all assistance programs to Pakistan, including civilian aid, and reverse US withdrawal plans from Afghanistan.