President George W. Bush has given permission to the armed forces and secret services from the U.S. to carry out attacks in Pakistan without asking permission from the Pakistani government, reported the New York Times today.
The U.S. president gave orders to that effect last July, according to the "high-level U.S. officials" to which cites the rotating New Yorker.
These officials assert that the U.S. shall inform the government of Pakistan when performing attacks and raids on Pakistani territory, as it did last week in a village near the border with Afghanistan which killed two dozen people, "but will not ask permission."
The newspaper said that "it is not clear exactly what legal figure has invoked the U.S. to carry out raids, albeit limited, in soil of a friendly country".
The CIA takes time from Afghanistan by launching air strikes against targets inside Pakistan by aircraft without pilot who fired air-to-ground missiles, but "new orders for the units' special operations' armed forces reduce restrictions on the conduct of raids on the territory of an important ally without your permission. "
The head of the Pakistan Army, General Ashfaq Kayani, said yesterday that "defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity at any cost" and that "not allow any external force to carry out operations within Pakistan."
The attack last week was carried out by "more than two dozens" of members of the "Seals", the special forces of the Navy, "which spent several hours on the ground and killed about two dozen suspected al-Qaeda fighters ", Before being removed from the area in helicopters, according to sources from the New York Times.
The Pakistani government has warned that attacks such as last week, made by U.S. forces on a unilateral basis, "do not help in the war on terrorism because only encolerizan public opinion," he said last Friday the ambassador of Pakistan in Washington, Husain Haqqani.
