The United States is escalating unilateral strikes against Al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan's tribal areas amid fears that the new government here will curtail such attacks, a report said Thursday. The Washington Post quoted US officials as saying that the US administration wants to do as much damage as it can to Al-Qaeda because it is worried that President Pervez Musharraf will have reduced powers in coming months. Musharraf's allies lost elections last month, and new Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told US President George W. Bush this week that a broader approach to the “war on terror” is necessary, including political solutions. The Post report said that in the past three months US Predator drones hit at least three sites used by hard-line Al-Qaeda militants in tribal regions near the Afghan border, killing about 45 Arab, Afghan and other foreign fighters. The strikes followed a “tacit understanding” with Musharraf and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani that permits US strikes on foreign rebels in Pakistan, but not against Pakistani Taleban, the Post quoted officials as saying. It quoted one senior official as describing the strikes as a “shake the tree” strategy designed to force Osama Bin Laden and key lieutenants to move in ways that US intelligence can detect. In January, a missile strike attributed to the United States killed senior Al-Qaeda commander Abu Laith Al-Libi. There was no immediate response from Pakistani officials on the report. Pakistan has never formally admitted to allowing such missile strikes and Musharraf earlier this year said that unauthorized military actions on Pakistani soil would be treated as an invasion. The report came as two senior US diplomats, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, continued a visit to Pakistan apparently aimed at wooing the new government. A senior partner in the new coalition government, former premier Nawaz Sharif, warned the envoys earlier this week that parliament would review Musharraf's “one-man” strategy against Islamic extremism. Sharif said he told them that it was unacceptable for Pakistan to become a “murder-house” for the sake of US policies. __
