Drone attacks in Pakistan are having unintended consequences (what a surprise!)

[IndianaGreen]

It is bad enough that hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed by drone attacks in Pakistan alone, but as it happens when one escalates a war, there is an equivalent response by the other side.

Insurgents forced out of Pakistan's tribal havens form smaller cells in heart of nation

By Griff Witte and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 19, 2009

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN-- Militants forced to flee their havens in Pakistan's mountainous tribal areas are establishing new, smaller cells in the heart of the country and have begun carrying out attacks nationwide, U.S. and Pakistani officials say.

The spread of fighters is an unintended consequence of a relatively successful effort by the United States and Pakistan to disrupt the insurgents' operations, through missile strikes launched by unmanned CIA aircraft and a ground offensive carried out this fall in South Waziristan by the Pakistani army.

American and Pakistani officials say the militants' widening reach has added to the challenge for both nations' intelligence, which must now track an insurgent diaspora that can infiltrate Pakistan's teeming cities and blend seamlessly with the local population. A Pakistani intelligence official said the offensive had put militants "on the run" but added: "Now they're all over -- Afghanistan, North Waziristan and inside Pakistan."

"They have scattered their network and structure," said Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, a security-oriented think tank. "It's easy for many of them to hide in Punjab or Karachi."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR2009121804334.html?hpid=topnews