A top Pakistani military official told reporters on a tour of the tribal areas on Tuesday that Islamabad would consider mounting a counterinsurgency offensive in North Waziristan only after other parts of Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt are stabilized. Lt. Gen. Asif Yasin Malik — commander of the Peshawar-based XIth Corps, which is leading the counterjihadist operations in Pakistan's northwest — said Pakistani forces do not have the resources to cover the entire area under his command. He said it would take at least another six months to clear out just Mohmand and Bajaur, the two agencies on the northern rim of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Malik estimated that "by 2012, things should have turned it around totally." This statement comes within days of the U.S. announcement of a $2 billion military assistance package for Pakistan. It conflicts with Washington's expectations that Pakistan would expand its ongoing offensive to North Waziristan — which has become the world's largest gathering spot for jihadists of various stripes — as quickly as possible. North Waziristan is the only agency of the seven in the autonomous tribal belt along the Afghan border where Pakistani security forces (despite having six brigades in the area) have not launched a major assault on Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. This issue has spurred the growing tensions between Washington and Islamabad. Islamabad feels it would be suicidal to act against Bahadur and Haqqani, especially when the Pakistanis are struggling to combat renegade Taliban forces elsewhere. Occasionally, senior U.S. officials issue statements that they understand that Pakistani forces are stretched to the limit and that Islamabad will decide when it is appropriate to send its forces into the area. On different occasions, however, Washington will go back to pressuring Islamabad into taking swift action in North Waziristan. In other words, the U.S. government oscillates between the realization that a premature expansion of the Pakistanis' offensive could make matters worse for Pakistan and its own desire for the rapid development of conditions in Afghanistan that would facilitate a U.S. withdrawal. All of this raises the question of why North Waziristan is such a huge point of contention between the United States and Pakistan. The answer has to do with the complex militant landscape in this particular FATA agency. North Waziristan's territory can be divided broadly into two dominions: one under the control of Pakistani warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur, and the other under the most prominent Afghan Taliban regional commander, Sirajuddin Haqqani. Neither Bahadur nor Haqqani is participating in the Pakistani Taliban rebellion, but both have complex ties to al Qaeda-led transnational jihadists and are focused on fighting coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan. From the Pakistani viewpoint, these men are not hostile forces who need to be fought: In fact, they are allies who can help Islamabad regain control of territory on its side of the border and regain its sphere of influence in a post-NATO Afghanistan. Islamabad feels it would be suicidal to act against Bahadur and Haqqani, especially when the Pakistanis are struggling to combat renegade Taliban forces elsewhere. But Pakistan cannot completely ignore North Waziristan — and not just because of U.S. pressure. Many of its own Taliban rebels relocated to the area late last year when security forces mounted a ground offensive in South Waziristan. Furthermore, al Qaeda and the transnational jihadists who are supporting Pakistani Islamist rebels are also based in this area. This is why Pakistan has not just accepted the increasing number of U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in North Waziristan: It is also facilitating them. However, Islamabad knows that the strikes alone will not solve its problems in the area and certainly will not satisfy Washington. Islamabad also wants to be able to regain control over the area, and it expects it can achieve this with a settlement in Afghanistan. Pakistan will argue that if the United States cannot impose a military solution in Afghanistan and is forced to negotiate on the other side of the border, then Pakistan should not wage war against those in its territory who are not fighting against Islamabad. This leads back to the disagreement between Washington and Islamabad over the definition of salvageable jihadists. To the United States, Haqqani is not just responsible for a great deal of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. He is also tied to al Qaeda, which continues to plot attacks in the United States and threatens U.S. interests in the region, and is thus irreconcilable. As far as the Pakistanis are concerned, Haqqani can be negotiated with and his ties with al Qaeda can be severed, much like what happened with Iraq's Awakening Councils. It is unclear that the United States and Pakistan can come to terms on which Taliban can be negotiated with. Until that happens, North Waziristan will remain a major source of tension between the two sides.