The Trump administration’s strategy for ending the war in Afghanistan and defeating terror groups in the region faces its first major test in its confrontation with Pakistan.

In a tweet this week, President Trump said Pakistan’s government has played the US for “fools” and received nothing but “lies and deceit” in return for billions in aid.

He wrote: “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

Loading article content

Then the administration said it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan, including $255 million in military aid this year.

State department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said she could not put a value on how much aid was being cut but it was acting as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network were “destabilising the region and also targeting US personnel”.

Putting pressure on Pakistan’s government to change its policies toward neighbouring Afghanistan is central to the Trump administration’s strategy, announced in August, to stabilise the region and bring an end to America’s longest war, now in its 17th year.

Pakistan is considered critical because its links to the Taliban insurgents fighting the US-backed Afghan government could help convince the militants to reach a political reconciliation.

“The senior (Taliban) leadership still resides in Pakistan,” said General John Nicholson, the US commander in Afghanistan. Nicholson said the military would like to see the Pakistanis eliminate the Taliban’s sanctuary across the Afghan border.

“We have got to see movement on this reduction of sanctuary and support for those insurgents and terrorists operating from Pakistan who are attacking our forces and our coalition diplomats and forces, as well as the Afghans, inside this country,” General Nicholson said in November.

Pakistan has been frustrating successive administrations since 2001, when US and British troops, among others, ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for providing a safe haven for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who masterminded the September 11 attacks on the US which saw thousand die, including in New York’s Twin Towers.

Bin Laden was killed in 2011 by US commandos who raided his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, raising questions about whether the Pakistani government knew he was there and protected him. Pakistan has refused to cut links with the Taliban and other terror groups.

Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI, has long had close ties to the Taliban.

Pakistan’s officials “work with us at times, and they also harbour the terrorists that attack our troops in Afghanistan,” said Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations.

On Thursday, the Trump administration notched up its criticism of Pakistan when the State Department included Pakistan on a list of countries that violate religious freedoms.

The political stand-off with Pakistan comes in the wake of a push by the administration to get Pakistan’s co-operation as part of its southwest Asia strategy launched last year.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis travelled to Pakistan to meet government officials. The United States has continually hoped the Pakistanis would change their behaviour, but “the evidence is all on the other side,” said David Sedney, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., and former top Pentagon official under President Barack Obama.

Pakistan’s government denies it has ties to terror groups and has pointed to military offensives it has conducted against insurgents in remote parts of the country.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called Trump’s criticism “incomprehensible” and said it “negated the decades of sacrifices made by the Pakistani nation”.

It is not clear the threat to cut off funding will be enough to influence Pakistan. The $33 billion Trump referred to represents the total amount of US military and economic aid given to Pakistan since 2002.

The amount of US aid to the country has been declining, however, so the United States has less leverage over Pakistan, said Michael O’Hanlon, an analyst at the Brookings Institution.

The $255m being withheld is annual military aid that the US still provides directly to Pakistan in return for fighting terrorism. The money is the most direct leverage it has at its disposal.

Mr Sedney say Pakistan is misusing the money: “They only fight the terrorists they want to fight and they don’t fight the terrorists that we want them to fight.”

The US stance has been praised by India and Afghanistan, but China, which is investing tens of billions in Pakistan, has defended Islamabad.

This article first appeared in our sister title, USA Today