Secretary Clinton Meets with Tribal Leaders in Pakistan *updated*

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton chats with Pakistani tribal people during her meeting with them in Islamabad, Pakistan on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009. Clinton came face-to-face Friday with Pakistani anger over U.S. aerial drone attacks in tribal areas along the Afghan border, a strategy that U.S. officials say has succeeded in killing key terrorist leaders.(AP Photo/Irfan Mahmood)

Secretary Clinton met with tribal leaders earlier today (Friday):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met tribal leaders from northwestern Pakistan, whose homeland is at the center of an army assault on Taliban militants, a day after she urged Pakistan to dislodge al-Qaeda from the region.

Sitting in a brick courtyard covered with red tribal carpets and decorated with U.S. and Pakistan flags, Clinton told the gathering the U.S. wanted to “leave the past behind” and work with peace builders, part of a pitch to counter rising anti-American sentiment amid escalating insurgencies in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.

In blunt remarks yesterday, she told a group of Pakistani editors in the eastern city of Lahore that “al-Qaeda has had safe haven” in Pakistan since 2002. “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to.”

Pakistan’s army has launched its largest offensive yet against Taliban guerrillas who control parts of the rugged, autonomous tribal zone along the Afghan border. The U.S. says many Taliban groups collaborate with al-Qaeda to attack international forces in Afghanistan.

The Pakistan army’s campaign is concentrated in South Waziristan, where the Taliban faction Pakistan blames for 80 percent of terrorist attacks in the country is based. The Taliban’s retaliatory bombings and gun attacks on military and civilian targets have killed at least 280 people this month.

Uphill Battle

Clinton’s three-day public diplomacy push to demonstrate America’s long-term commitment to Pakistani democracy and development has proved an uphill battle. As she expressed solidarity with Pakistan over hundreds of lives lost in the wave of bombings, she has faced repeated questions over American aims in the region.

One tribal leader told Clinton today that Pakistan had been “fighting your war” in the past and is doing so again today. “The blood spilled” is ours, Mufti Kifayatullah, a member of the local assembly in the North West Frontier Province said, speaking in Pashto.

Negotiations should begin in Afghanistan and then be extended to Pakistan’s tribal regions, the tribal leader said.

“I certainly hope there will be an opportunity for negotiations,” Clinton said, so that “violence will end.” She said that after the Sept. 11 attacks eight years ago the U.S. made it clear it “would go away” if the perpetrators were handed over.

Clinton has stood her ground against Pakistanis’ anger over perceived conditions imposed in a $7.5 billion U.S. economic aid package, while criticizing some in the opposition and media for fanning the furor over the bill signed by President Barack Obama this month…

[snip]

An August survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center showed 64 percent of Pakistanis regard the U.S. as an enemy. A poll released July 1 by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland shows 90 percent of Pakistanis think the U.S. abuses its power, the highest among the 22 countries surveyed.

Missile attacks by unmanned U.S. drone aircraft are especially unpopular. Pakistan’s Interior Ministry says at least 528 civilians had been killed by drones, without specifying the period. Baitullah Mehsud, former leader of the Taliban faction targeted by the army in South Waziristan, died in a rocket raid.

Hours after Clinton arrived in Islamabad on Oct. 27, a car bomb destroyed a crowded market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 117 people, many of them women and children, in the deadliest attack since October 2007.

Late yesterday in Islamabad, she met with Pakistan’s most powerful national security policy makers, Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Lieutenant General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, who heads Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.

Pakistan says the ISI, which coordinates with the Central Intelligence Agency in counterterrorism operations, has ended its support for militant groups that long served as proxies in skirmishes with India…

I’ll update as more information becomes available.

UPDATE: This video is from Young Turks:

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