By Christina Lamb, Times Online

 Obama has secretly deployed hundreds of soldiers into Pakistan

THE discovery of three American soldiers among the dead in a suicide bombing at the opening of a girls’ school in the northwestern Pakistan town of Dir last week reignited the fears of many Pakistanis that Washington was set on invading their country.

Barack Obama has banned the Bush-era term “war on terror” and dithered about sending extra troops to Afghanistan, but across the border in Pakistan, the US president has dramatically stepped up the covert war against Islamic extremists.

US airstrikes in Pakistan, launched from unmanned drones, are now averaging three a week, triple the number last year. “We’re quietly seeing a geographical shift,” an intelligence officer said.

For the past month drones have pounded the tribal region of North Waziristan in apparent retaliation for the murder of seven CIA officers in Afghanistan by a Jordanian suicide bomber working with the Pakistani Taliban.

Last week America launched its first multiple drone attack, according to Pakistani security officials. Eighteen missiles were fired from eight unmanned aircraft in Dattakhel village, killing 16 people.

The discovery of the dead US soldiers revealed that America’s shadowy war in Pakistan not only involves drones but also small cadres of special operations soldiers.

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DEBKAfile

Obama's war is Afganistan is going badly

The approximately 60,000 NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan are unable to achieve the goals of the war – even with the additional 21,000 US combat troops promised this year and “the big jump in the size of Afghan security forces” demanded by the new US commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

DEBKAfile’s military analysts see no real corroboration for the UK Chief of Defense Staff Sir Jock Stirrup’s assertion that the Taliban is “losing” in Afghanistan and “real governance” is emerging in Afghanistan.

He spoke Saturday, July 11 after the deaths of eight British troops in 24 hours in the embattled South Afghan province of Helmand, which the British death toll in 10 days to 15 and 184 in the nine-year war.

The 3,000 British troops were hit devastatingly in the third week of their Operation Panther’s Claw, launched to clear central Helmand of Taliban insurgents before Afghanistan’s August elections. A total 9,000 UK troops are deployed in the country.

The main thrust of the effort, the large-scale Operation Khanjar or Strike of the Sword, was mounted on July 2 by 4,000 US marines and 650 Afghan troops in the southern part of the province bordering on Pakistan.

July already threatens to become one of the bloodiest months of the war, with seven US troops killed Monday, July 6, and another five NATO soldiers in southern Afghanistan Friday, July 10.

Most of the losses were caused by powerful roadside bombs (IEDs) and some suicide attacks.

By UPI

Pakistan is coming apart and Obama may increase America's role

U.S. President Barack Obama and security advisers are considering pushing airstrikes against the Taliban in Pakistan beyond the tribal region, officials said.

Senior administration officials said two reports on Pakistan and Afghanistan included calls for broadening the target area to include a haven for insurgents in and around Quetta, where Taliban leaders have mounted attacks into southern Afghanistan, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

In separate reports, panels led by U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of American forces in the region, and U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a White House official on Afghanistan, recommended expanding American operations outside the tribal areas if Pakistan cannot eradicate the strengthening insurgency.

By James Lamont and Amy Kazmin, Financial Times

India fears a Pro Muslim Obama

India has warned US President Barack Obama that he risks “barking up the wrong tree” if he seeks to broker a settlement between Pakistan and India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

MK Narayanan, India’s national security advisor, said that the new US administration was in danger of dredging up out of date Clinton administration-era strategies in a bid to bring about improved ties between the two nuclear armed neighbours.

“I do think that we could make President Obama understand, if he does nurse any such view, that he is barking up the wrong tree. I think Kashmir today has become one of the quieter and safer places in this part of the world,” Mr Narayanan said in an interview with CNBC TV18.