Al-Qaeda focus shifting to Pakistan: US Gen

WASHINGTON—Pakistan has replaced Iraq as al Qaeda’s main focus, and the terror group has stepped up its efforts to destabilize the nuclear-armed South Asian nation, according to a senior U.S. military commander. “Iraq is now a rear-guard action on the part of al Qaeda,” said Gen. James Conway, the head of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview.
“They’ve changed their strategic focus not to Afghanistan but to Pakistan, because Pakistan is the closest place where you have the nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons.” Gen. Conway also offered a stark assessment of the Afghan situation, saying the Taliban has built a rudimentary command-and-control network that enables the group’s leadership to direct attacks across the country.
Gen. Conway said Pakistan’s best troops were deployed along its border with India and weren’t being used in the fight against the country’s militants. Pakistan’s leadership doesn’t yet seem to accept that terrorism poses an existential risk to the country’s future, he added. “Pakistan has to understand there’s a dire threat there that they have to act against,” he said.
Gen. Conway said the attacks had killed al Qaeda figures involved in planning attacks on targets in Europe and the U.S. “It is important that we keep them on the run,” he said. Still, he described the strikes as a “high-wire act” that risked damaging relations.
Gen. Conway said the U.S. military needed to reorient itself in response to the changing conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq’s security situation has improved so much that for the first time it “smells like victory” there, he said. The gains should clear the way for the withdrawal next year of many of the 20,000 Marines currently deployed to the country, he added.
Al-Qaeda has permanently lost its foothold in large parts of Iraq and has begun to shift its focus to Afghanistan and Pakistan, top U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
They will never be able to get back in amongst the people (in Iraq) where they have to live and operate in order to be able to be successful,” Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an interview with USA TODAY. U.S. military commanders have been hesitant to describe recent progress in Iraq as irreversible, but violence has been at low levels for several months. Al-Qaeda still has a presence in the northern city of Mosul but has largely been driven out of Baghdad, other major cities and its former stronghold of Anbar province.
“Having lost that support in Iraq, I think … they’re looking where else can (they) be effective,” Conway said. He cited Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan. The shift comes as U.S. military and intelligence officials worry that the war in Afghanistan is emerging as a larger threat than Iraq. “Any additional force that is sent to Afghanistan must come … as a result of a reduction in Iraq,” Conway said.

—Agencies