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US envoy complains of Haqqani havens
WASHINGTON: The US ambassador to Afghanistan sent a top-secret cable to Washington last month warning that the existence of enemy havens in Pakistan was placing the US strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy, The Washington Post reported late on Friday.
Why are we reporting it if it's a 'top-secret' cable?
Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said that the cable, written by Ambassador Ryan Crocker, amounted to an admission that US efforts to curtail activities in Pakistan by the Haqqani network, a key Taliban ally, were failing.

In past years, US military officials have argued that the best defence against Pakistan insurgent sanctuaries
Also known as Taliban and ISI strongholds...
was a stronger Afghan army and government, the newspaper report said. But with the US drawdown looming, the need to directly address the sanctuaries seems more urgent.

"The sanctuaries are a deal-killer for the strategy," The Post quoted a senior defence official as saying. The Haqqani network is responsible for some of the larger and more dramatic attacks on Kabul, including one on the US Embassy last year, the paper said.

The group's patriarch, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was a major mujahideen fighter in the CIA-backed effort to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980s. He has relinquished control to his son, Sirajuddin, who carries a $5 million US bounty on his head and runs day-to-day operations from the network's Pakistani base in Miranshah, the paper said.

The location has given the Haqqani leadership a measure of protection, according to The Post.
Not from above. There's a drone carrying a Hellfire missile with 'Sirajuddin' written on it...
A good time to trigger it would be soon.

Posted by: Steve White 2012-02-26
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=339757