* Karzai backs proposal for U.S. raids into Pakistan * Bush approved special forces assaults - New York Times * Pakistan says its forces kill 100 militants in Bajaur By Augustine Anthony ISLAMABAD, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai backed a proposed U.S. strategy on Thursday to hit al Qaeda and Taliban militants in neighboring Pakistan, but NATO said it would not join any cross-border U.S. raids. Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has said his country would not allow foreign troops to conduct operations on its soil, warning that Pakistan's sovereignty would be defended "at all cost." But The New York Times reported that President George W. Bush secretly approved orders in July allowing U.S. special forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without approval from the Pakistan government. It said Bush's orders reflect concern about safe havens for al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan and an American view that Pakistan lacks the will and ability to combat militants. "The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable," the Times quoted a senior U.S. official as saying. "We have to be more assertive. Orders have been issued." Helicopter-borne U.S. commandos carried out a ground assault in Pakistan's South Waziristan, a sanctuary for al Qaeda operatives, last week, the first known incursion into Pakistan by U.S. troops since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The raid killed 20 people, including women and children. U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Wednesday he was "looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy" that would cover both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Karzai faces an intensified insurgency in Afghanistan and has advocated hot-pursuit missions into Pakistan before. At a news conference in Kabul on Thursday he backed Mullen's shift. "Change of strategy is essential," Karzai said. "It means that we go to those areas which are the training bases and havens of (terrorists) and we jointly go there and remove and destroy them." FIERCE CLASHES Pakistan's U.S. ambassador, Husain Haqqani, disputed the Times article and said in any case such an authorization was not binding on his country. "In our bilateral discussions, no such idea has been mooted and will certainly not be accepted by Pakistan," he told Reuters in an interview. "Pakistan would not accept foreign troops. This is not the best way to pursue the war against terror." A senior Pakistani official, who asked not to be named, said unilateral U.S. military action would only further antagonize Pakistanis, especially if civilians were accidentally killed as has happened in past raid. "You go in, you kill a few villagers, you don't know who the heck you're killing ... A cowboy approach is only going to antagonize Pakistanis," the official said. In the latest fighting in Pakistan's northwestern Bajaur region, close to the Afghan border, Pakistani security forces killed up to 100 al Qaeda-linked militants in fierce clashes, a security official said. "Eighty to 100 militants were killed in Bajaur today. Most of them are foreigners," the official said on condition of anonymity. Troops have killed more than 600 militants in Bajaur since August, the government says. Militants in Bajaur, where some analysts believe top al Qaeda leaders are hiding, regularly cross into Afghanistan to attack Western troops and government forces there. NATO, which leads a force of some 53,000 troops in Afghanistan alongside a separate U.S. force, said it would not take part in raids into Pakistan. "The NATO policy, that is our mandate, ends at the border," spokesman James Appathurai said. "There are no ground or air incursions by NATO forces into Pakistani territory." Some Pakistani analysts say a frustrated U.S. administration wants to score points before a November election but it risks sparking an uprising among ethnic Pashtuns. "We will convince the U.S. that it can get nothing through unilateral action in tribal areas except opposition of the masses," Haqqani was reported telling the BBC. Last week's U.S. attack also complicates the situation for Pakistan's new civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, who was sworn in on Tuesday, having forced former army chief Pervez Musharraf to stand down last month after nine years in power. The U.S.-led campaign against militancy is unpopular in Pakistan. Zardari is seen as close to the United States but, as an elected civilian leader, he cannot ignore public opinion. The new government in Islamabad says it is committed to the campaign against militancy, launched after the Sept. 11 attacks seven years ago, but bans incursions by U.S. troops. (For a blog on Pakistan, see http:/blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/) (Additional reporting by Kamran Haider in Islamabad, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, David Morgan in Washington and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul; Editing by Dominic Evans and David Wiessler)
Pakistani residents offer funeral prayers for victims near a mosque a day after a grenade attack in the remote village in Dir district of North West Frontier Province September 11, 2008. ...
