WASHINGTON, Sept 5: Cross-border US commando missions into Pakistan may grow in coming months despite doubts within the Pentagon over the efficacy of such raids, said a report published on Friday.

Pentagon officials who spoke to Los Angeles Times said that some officials in the US Defence Department believed such commando raids were necessary to counter increasing violence in Afghanistan.

While reporting the Pentagon’s new strategy, the newspaper noted that the raids “threatened to aggravate US-Pakistani tensions just before the country’s presidential election on Saturday, in which attitudes towards the United States are likely to be a key issue.”

A senior Pentagon official told the paper that the presence of so-called safe havens in Fata forced US officials to conduct Wednesday’s raid that killed dozens of people in South Waziristan.

“You can’t allow a haven,” said a military officer, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity about the raid. “You have to get to the areas that they rest, relax and train.”

US intelligence officials told the newspapers that Wednesday’s raid was along the border, not deep in tribal areas.

Another US official suggested that the raid was conducted in response to border attacks, and that no high-ranking militant leader was captured or killed.

“There are targets other than formally designated high-value targets,” the official said.

The report also noted that the raid had fanned a long-standing debate within the Bush administration over how to deal with militants in Pakistan.

Pressure has been building within the US military for more aggressive use of existing practices as US casualties have increased with the rising number of attacks carried out in Afghanistan by militants based in Pakistan, the report added.

A senior Pentagon official, while talking to the Times, conceded that pushing for more aggressive action by the new Pakistani government also carried risks. Any Pakistani politician perceived to favour more US latitude in Pakistan would suffer, the official said.

“If you want to lose,” the official said, “just be the one that gets caught talking to (Vice-President Dick) Cheney about US incursions across your border.”

The newspaper noted that many within the Pentagon and among military officers in the region are sceptical about the value of increased US operations in Pakistan. These officials believe that stepped-up operations risk a backlash and that a better approach would be to steadily press the Pakistani military to take on the extremists.

“The frequency of US raids in the future may depend on the Pakistani reaction,” the report said. “US officials are monitoring both the public response and the private reaction from leaders of the fledgling Pakistani government. Some military officials considered the initial Pakistani response relatively restrained, although protests continued to build.”

US military officials told L. A. Times that the US administration had used existing authorities negotiated with former President Pervez Musharraf to launch the raid. A senior military official said the volatile political situation in Pakistan had prevented any new negotiations for US operations in the country.

The US has long claimed the right to cross the border in “hot pursuit” of militants, but the Times noted that “Wednesday’s raid does not appear to be a case of hot pursuit”.

US special operations forces have conducted raids before, including a 2006 mission in which the elite SEAL Team 6 went into Damadola to attack an Al Qaeda compound, the report said.