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Washington: Two US officials have claimed that a special US unit now had the authority to go after al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan without having to seek permission from the Pakistani authorities.
Lt Gen Stanley A McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Special
Operations Command (JSOC), operates on the understanding with Pakistan that US units will not enter Pakistan, except under extreme circumstances, and that Pakistan will deny giving them permission, the Daily Times quoted a Washington Post report as saying.
According to the report, "Pakistan will permit only small numbers of US forces to operate with its troops at times and, because their role is so sensitive politically, it officially denies any US presence."
"A frequent complaint from US troops is that they have too little to do. The same complaint is also heard from US forces in Afghanistan, where there were few targets to go after. McChrystal has become the de facto leader of the hunt for bin Laden and developed a good working relationship with the CIA. He asks for targets from the CIA, and it tries to comply," the report added.
Pakistan has been against the idea of giving US forces a free hand to enter the tribal areas where Osama was hiding.
This is what happened in January 2006, when the JSOC troops clandestinely entered the village of Saidgai, and Pakistan protested, the report quoted the two unidentified US officials as saying.
"The authority follows the target - if the target is bin Laden, the stakes are high enough for McChrystal to decide any action on his own," said one of the officials.
According to the report, the JSOC had been given more resources from the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.
US President George Bush recently directed the team to "flood the zone" or intensify the search for bin Laden. The resources of the special group in terms of personnel and materials were also increased, the report said and added that no one knew where the "zone" was.
The report also quoted a former CIA officer as saying that it would take just one day to hunt Osama if US forces had the authority to carry out the search operation without Pakistan’s permission. "This could all end tomorrow."
One unsolicited walk-in, one tribesman seeking to collect the 25-million-dollar reward, one courier who would rather his kids grow up in the US, one deal maker, "and this could all change," the paper quoted Gary Berntsen, the former CIA officer who led the first and last hunt for bin Laden at Tora Bora in December 2001, as saying.
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