WASHINGTON, Feb 19: The United States was not sure if the Pakistani military and ISI backed President Asif Ali Zardari’s commitment to eradicate terrorist sanctuaries from the NWFP, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan said on Thursday.

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, in his first media interview after returning from a fact-finding mission to South Asia earlier this week, said this issue “will be pursued at very high levels” in US-Pakistan talks scheduled in Washington next week.

Ambassador Holbrooke also linked this week’s peace agreement in Swat to the military’s reluctance to support President Zardari’s anti-terrorism policies and said the US was “troubled and confused” about this deal.

But unlike the special envoy, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared more willing to give Pakistan a chance to explain how and why it concluded a deal with the militants in Swat.

“We are trying to determine exactly what was agreed to,” she said in an interview to ABC television released by the State Department on Thursday.

“There have been some contradictory reports about what was or wasn’t agreed to and I want to wait until I have a full understanding before I comment,” she added.

Diplomatic observers in the United States see this as a “good-cop-bad-cop” strategy aimed at extracting maximum cooperation from Pakistan in the war against terrorists.

They noted that while underlining the military’s lack of commitment, Mr Holbrooke forgot to mention that the army had deployed more than 120,000 troops along the Afghan border and more than 1,000 Pakistani soldiers have already been killed in this fight.

He also makes no attempt to understand Pakistan’s position on Swat where the army wants to avoid being sucked into a situation which forces it to launch a massive military action against its people.

“We are attempting to drive a wedge between Al Qaeda and the militant Taliban on the one hand, and Swat’s indigenous movement that seeks to restore traditional law in the district,” said Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador in Washington, while explaining why Islamabad made a pact with the militants.

“This is part of a pragmatic military and political strategy to turn our native populations against the terrorists, to isolate and marginalise the terrorists,” he added.

“Well, this is a very important question which we’re exploring in depth now,” said Ambassador Holbrooke when asked if the Pakistani military shared President Zardari’s commitment to the fight against terrorists.

“I’ve rarely seen in my years in Washington an issue which is so hotly disputed internally by experts and intelligence officials as the one you raised.”

He said the US was engaged in “very intense discussions with the military leadership of Pakistan and the ISI” about this particular issue.

“We’re troubled and confused, in a sense, about what happened in Swat, because it is not an encouraging trend. Previous ceasefires have broken down. And we do not want to see transparently ceded to the bad guys, and the people who took over Swat are very bad people.”

In his interview to American television network PBS, Ambassador Holbrooke, however, acknowledged that “it’s a little early to come to final conclusions”.

He said the US had invited Pakistani and Afghan foreign ministers to Washington next week to participate in the process for formulating a new US strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Kayani’s visit

The Pakistani delegation, he said, would also include military representatives and the issue of the military’s commitment to the war on terror would be pursued at very high levels in next week’s dialogue.

Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is coming to Washington on Sunday for a week-long visit and will meet senior US officials and generals. As Ambassador Holbrooke indicated, Gen Kayani might also have to encounter this issue during his talks with American officials.

Even while responding to a question about US President Barack Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, Ambassador Holbrooke used Pakistan as an example to show how the militants were expanding their influence in the region.

“The Taliban are resurgent. They have an increasingly large sanctuary in Pakistan. The events in Swat only highlight that,” he said.

The “denial of the Afghan territory to Al Qaeda is not, in my view, anything beyond an interim necessity. After all, Al Qaeda is operating freely in the tribal areas of western Pakistan,” he added.

He said that the Obama administration’s decision to include both Afghanistan and Pakistan in the review process was a manifestation of “a new, intense, engaged diplomacy designed to put Afghanistan and Pakistan into a larger regional context and move forward to engage other countries in the effort to stabilise this incredibly volatile region.”

He said that last week he went to Pakistan’s tribal areas but was unable to land in Bajaur because of the fighting.

“(We) saw the flattened villages, and then we insisted that we land, and we landed in the next tribal area just south of it and talked at length to the people on the ground, an unannounced stop, about the war.”

He said that in Peshawar he heard from citizens that they could not walk their dogs or drive to Islamabad without risking their lives. “A national assemblyman was killed the day we were there,” he added.

“Even in faraway Lahore, the Pakistanis were traumatised, in a state of real near shock at the fall of Swat, which is, after all, a resort they all went to for vacations.”

Asked if India and Pakistan were engaged in a regional competition in Afghanistan, Mr Holbrooke noted that the Pakistan army had been focussed on India for decades.

“Most of us believe that they ought to reorient their attention much more to the west. But in order to do that, there has to be much more confidence between Pakistan and India,” he added.

“We have got to understand that to get the Pakistanis to focus on the west; we have to have a reduction in tensions between India and Pakistan.”

The interviewer, Jim Lehrer, reminded him that during the election campaign President Obama had advocated US involvement in resolving the Kashmir dispute. “Is this going to be an Obama administration goal?” he asked.

“It is not part of my mission to work on Kashmir,” said Mr Holbrooke.

Economic pressure

In her interview to ABC, Secretary Clinton focussed on the international economic crisis, warning that if left unresolved, it would create massive unemployment, upend governments and breed instability.

“Look at Pakistan, a country that we know has to be stabilised for the benefit of not only South Asia, but beyond. It is where the terrorists and their allies have found haven. But the economy in Pakistan is under even greater pressure now because of the global economic crisis,” she said.

“If Pakistan becomes more financially unstable, that increases the danger that we will face from the threat by the extremists to the Pakistan government.”

Asked for comments on the Swat peace deal, she said she would want to get the whole picture of what the Pakistanis were attempting to achieve before offering any comments.

“There were, as I said, some contradictory communications from the government as to what was really going on, and we want to sort that out before we say anything.”

Asked if the deal was cause of concern for Washington, she said: “The entire situation in Pakistan is a concern. That’s why we are conducting a policy review that looks at Pakistan and Afghanistan. That’s why, when the President and I decided to have a special representative, it was for both Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

She said the US understood that the instability in Pakistan, the safe haven given to Al Qaeda and to the Taliban, the alliances among the extremist groups, was a threat to the stability of the Pakistani government, a threat to the stability of Afghanistan, and a much broader threat to the region and to the US.