US plans spring offensive in Pak to catch Osama

Determined to capture or kill Osama bin Laden after two years of fruitless searching, US troops are mustering for a spring offensive along A...

Determined to capture or kill Osama bin Laden after two years of fruitless searching, US troops are mustering for a spring offensive along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.

The new operation comes as the administration debates whether to press Pakistan harder to allow the US to take the fight into its territory. Defence officials said the offensive, first reported by The Chicago Tribune, will resemble military operations launched in 2002 and 2003 to capture or kill Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters leaving winter bivouacs.

Osama and some of his top aides are believed to be operating out of Pakistan’s Waziristan area or in the mountainous border region between the two nations with the assistance or protection of tribal leaders in areas that are off-limits to Pakistani law enforcement officials. That poses a dilemma for the administration: How to press the hunt for bin Laden and Al Qaeda without putting Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, an ally in the ‘‘war on terror,’’ at further risk.

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According to two US officials, some senior Pentagon officials are pushing for an aggressive hunt for Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, while some officials at the State Department and in the National Security Council argue that Musharraf’s already fragile regime, under growing pressure from Islamic hard-liners, would be further destabilized if he allowed foreign troops to operate on Pakistani soil.

US officials stressed on Wednesday that no military operations would be carried out inside Pakistan without Musharraf’s approval. At the WEF in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Musharraf ruled out such operations. ‘‘No sir, that is not a possibility at all. It’s a very sensitive issue,’’ Musharraf said, when asked if he would consider allowing US troops to search for Laden in Pakistan.

—LAT-WP