WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan concludes that Pakistan’s military avoided direct conflict this spring with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda militants, partly for political reasons.
The biannual evaluation of progress in the war also said devastating monsoon flooding in August had prompted Pakistan to scale back its military effort against the insurgents, a move that could ultimately result in gains for the militants.
“The Pakistan military (between April 1 and June 30) continued to avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or al-Qaeda forces in North Waziristan,” the report said.
“This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets,” said the report, which was compiled by the White House National Security Council and sent to Congress earlier this week.
It included a cover letter from President Barack Obama saying no adjustments to the Afghan war strategy were needed.
The report, which included input from the Pentagon and other U.S. departments, came at a sensitive time for U.S.-Pakistani relations.
Cross-border incursions by U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan killed two Pakistani border guards this week, prompting Pakistan to close a border checkpoint to trucks ferrying supplies to international forces in Afghanistan.
Since then, militants have repeatedly destroyed trucks in supply convoys, including seven vehicles on Wednesday.
The NSC report came just two weeks before a third round of the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue, which aims to reverse decades of mistrust between the two countries.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs played down the significance of the report. “I don’t think it is surprising that we have challenges in that region of the world. Our belief is that despite those challenges we are making important progress,” he told reporters.
But Michael O’Hanlon, a national security analyst at the Brookings Institution think tank, said the report showed Washington believed there was less Pakistani commitment than it had hoped for and was more willing to say that publicly.
“It’s obviously a little bit of a shock to the U.S.-Pakistani relationship and it’s intended that way,” he added, saying it suggested the “steady quiet progress we were making earlier in the year has stopped” and it was time to try something new.
“Implicitly it acknowledges that we’re in trouble in Afghanistan in some ways, too, I think, because if everything was going along more or less OK, then we would not bother with this,” O’Hanlon said.
