Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's powerful army chief said in a rare briefing to parliamentarians that the U.S. should focus its efforts on stabilizing neighboring Afghanistan, rather than pressuring Islamabad to step up its war against Islamist militants on Pakistani territory, a parliament member said Wednesday.
Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani's appearance before two parliamentary defense committees followed increased U.S. pressure on Pakistan to crack down on the Haqqani militant network, believed to be based in the country's North Waziristan tribal area along the Afghan border.
The U.S. has deemed the Haqqani network the most dangerous threat to American troops in Afghanistan and has accused the Pakistan military's spy agency, the ISI, of supporting the militants – an allegation denied by Islamabad.
"The real problem lies in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan," Kayani was quoted as saying by a parliament member who attended the three-hour briefing at army headquarters in Rawalpindi. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was not open to the media.
The Pakistan army said in a statement that the briefing occurred, but did not provide details on the discussion.
Some analysts have accused the U.S. of focusing on Pakistan and the Haqqani network as a way to redirect blame over stuttering efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military has also sought to deflect blame for its failure to crack down on the Haqqanis by saying that NATO and Afghan forces need to do more to prevent militants from crossing over from Afghanistan and attacking Pakistan.
Kayani said his military could launch a full-scale operation in North Waziristan "tomorrow" if someone convinced him that the it was the root cause of problems in Afghanistan, said the committee member.
That represents a shift from the military's normal explanation for its lack of action in North Waziristan: that its troops are stretched too thin by operations in other parts of the tribal region against Pakistani Taliban militants at war with the state.
Unlike the Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani network and the Afghan branch of the Taliban usually refrain from fighting the Pakistani army, instead focusing their attacks against Afghan and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Many analysts believe Pakistan has refused to target these groups because they could be important allies in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.
Adm. Mike Mullen, who was until recently the top military officer in the U.S., claimed last month that the Haqqani network was a "veritable arm" of the ISI and accused the spy agency of helping the group carry out an attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Kayani said the ISI has contacts with the Haqqani network that it uses to get intelligence, claiming U.S. and British spy agencies do the same.
Mullen's comments outraged Pakistani officials and prompted local media speculation that the U.S. would launch a unilateral raid against the Haqqanis in North Waziristan, as it did on May 2 when it killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town.
Lying two-faced prick. I think our intelligence is a little more sophisticated than the Paks'.
We are not there for Afghanistan but to take out terrorist which are sheltering in Pakistan!!!
Afghanistan is a sideshow.
We have to view any comments coming from Pakistan with suspicion. Many times they publicly say something and behind the scenes are doing something else. Public image and reality are many times a lot different.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Obama administration was delivering a blunt warning Thursday that the United States will do what it must to go after militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan, whether Pakistan helps or not.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton led an unusually large U.S. delegation for two days of talks with civilian and military leaders who have resisted previous U.S. demands to take a harder tack against militants who attack American soldiers and interests in Afghanistan.
The large U.S. contingent was meant to display unity among the various U.S. agencies, including the CIA, Pentagon and State Department, with an interest in Pakistan.
CIA chief David Petraeus and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey joined Clinton, who said the team would "push Pakistan very hard."
Clinton arrived in Islamabad from Afghanistan, where she told Pakistan it must be part of the solution to the Afghan conflict. She said the U.S. expects the Pakistani government, military and intelligence services to take the lead in fighting Pakistan-based militants and also in encouraging Afghan militants to reconcile.
"Our message is very clear," Clinton said. "We're going to be fighting, we are going to be talking and we are going to be building ... and they can either be helping or hindering, but we are not going to stop."
The meetings were expected to focus on the recurrent U.S. demand that Pakistan launch its own offensive against a lethal Taliban affiliate known as the Haqqani network. It operates on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border; U.S. officials claim Pakistan either tolerates or supports the group's activities.
U.S. military leaders have told the Pakistanis that if Islamabad does not act against the Haqqanis, the U.S. will.
"We must send a clear, unequivocal message to the government and people of Pakistan that they must be part of the solution, and that means ridding their own country of terrorists who kill their own people and who cross the border to kill people in Afghanistan," Clinton said.
Pakistan has deployed 170,000 soldiers to its eastern border with Afghanistan and more than 3,000 soldiers have died in battles with militants. So Pakistani leaders bristle at U.S. criticism that they have not done enough or that they play a double game fighting militants in some areas, supporting them in others where they might be useful proxies in a future conflict with India.
A new offensive unleashed in recent days by the U.S.-led coalition against the Haqqani network in Afghanistan has added a sense of urgency to the talks in Pakistan.
Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, described the offensive during an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press as a "high intensity sensitive operation." He would not give a precise location or other details.
For more than three decades, the Haqqani network, led by patriarch Jalaluddin Haqqani, has maintained a headquarters in Pakistan's Miran Shah district of North Waziristan. The United States has had some recent successes killing at least two top Haqqani commanders in drone attacks.
Senior U.S. officials said the CIA was given a clearer green light to go after the Taliban affiliate in its Pakistani stronghold after the attack on a military base in Wardak, Afghanistan, that wounded 77 American soldiers. The Sept. 10 attack, blamed on the Haqqanis, helped convince Clinton that the U.S. should take decisive action against the network, two officials said.
Clinton and other U.S. officials had worried that CIA pressure on the network, primarily through drone strikes, would make its leaders less likely to support peace efforts between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Washington has had contact with some within the Haqqani network, including Ibrahim Haqqani, the brother of Jalaluddin, according to several Afghan and U.S. officials.
That same worry has held up an expected U.S. announcement that the Haqqani network will be placed on a list of terrorist groups subject to U.S. punishment. That move is now expected within a few weeks, two officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are not complete.
The U.S. and NATO consider the Taliban affiliate to be the single greatest enemy in Afghanistan, and they accuse Pakistan of providing the group safe havens. There are also recent allegations that Pakistan has sent rocket fire into Afghanistan to provide cover for insurgents crossing the border.
Pakistan has denied aiding the Haqqanis. An increasingly angry Pakistani military has refused to carry out an offensive in the North Waziristan tribal region, saying it would unleash a tribal-wide war that Pakistan could not contain.
ISLAMABAD -- The Obama administration on Friday intensified pressure on Pakistan to do more to crack down on Islamist militants destabilizing Afghanistan, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a tough public message that extremists have been able to operate in and from Pakistan for too long.
For the second time in two days, Clinton pressed Pakistani authorities to step up efforts against the Haqqani militant network, which is based in the country's rugged tribal region, and is blamed for attacks both inside Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.
After leading an unusually large and powerful U.S. delegation, including CIA director David Petraeus and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, for four hours of talks with Pakistani officials late Thursday, Clinton met Friday with Pakistan's president and foreign minister to make the case.
"We should be able to agree that for too long extremists have been able to operate here in Pakistan and from Pakistani soil," she said. "No one who targets innocent civilians, whether they be Pakistanis, Afghans, Americans or anyone else should be tolerated or protected."
The U.S. has grown increasingly impatient with Pakistan's refusal to take military action against the Taliban-linked Haqqani network and its ambivalence, if not hostility, to supporting Afghan attempts to reconcile Taliban fighters into society.
Clinton made clear that that was no longer acceptable while American officials warned that if Pakistan continued to balk, the U.S. would act unilaterally to end the militant threat.
"Pakistan has a critical role to play in supporting Afghan reconciliation and ending the conflict," Clinton told reporters at a joint press conference with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. "We look to Pakistan to take strong steps to deny Afghan insurgents safe havens and to encourage the Taliban to enter negotiations in good faith."
The Haqqani group is considered the greatest threat to American troops in Afghanistan, and U.S. officials have accused Pakistan's military spy agency, the ISI, of providing it with support an allegation denied by Islamabad. Clinton noted that U.S. and Afghan forces had recently launched a successful operation against Haqqani safe havens in Afghanistan and that Pakistan must do the same. On Thursday in the Afghan capital, she said those who allow such safe havens to remain would pay "a very big price."
After the lengthy meeting with Pakistan's prime minister and army and intelligence chiefs on Thursday and Friday's talks with Kahr, Clinton said the U.S. delegation had asked "very specifically for greater cooperation from the Pakistan side to squeeze the Haqqani network and other terrorists because we know that trying to eliminate terrorists and safe havens from one side of the border is not going to work."
"It's like that old story: you can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors," she said.
Clinton made the same argument later in a town hall meeting with civic leaders.
"No policy that draws distinctions between good terrorists and bad terrorists can provide long-term security," she said.
She also acknowledged that U.S.-Pakistani ties were now badly strained. "Our relationship of late has not been an easy one," she said. "We have seen common interests give way to mutual suspicion."
For her part, Kahr repeated Pakistani denials of any government connection to the Haqqanis.
"There is no question of any support by any Pakistani institution to safe havens in Pakistan," she said.
And, she insisted that Pakistan and the U.S. shared the same goal.
"Pakistan takes the threat of terrorism seriously," she said, noting that thousands of Pakistanis had been killed by extremists over the past decade. "We are committed to this process, we would be willing to do whatever we can to be able to make this a success."
Yeah, like they are going to get right on it. Well, they'll look like they are getting right on it and they will kill people to have it look like they are in the swing.
While they keep pulling in the money and supporting the terrorists to keep terrorizing so they can continue to reap the financial benefits.
They had bin Laden on 'ice'. It's not hard to see the pattern.
Yeah, like they are going to get right on it. Well, they'll look like they are getting right on it and they will kill people to have it look like they are in the swing.
While they keep pulling in the money and supporting the terrorists to keep terrorizing so they can continue to reap the financial benefits.
They had bin Laden on 'ice'. It's not hard to see the pattern.
The Pakistanis know the game, they will throw us a bone every now and than but keep the real players hidden and safe, if they were serious about helping us they would have delivered Osama Bin Laden to us in a box years ago when he tried to take refuge there.
Yeah, like they are going to get right on it. Well, they'll look like they are getting right on it and they will kill people to have it look like they are in the swing.
While they keep pulling in the money and supporting the terrorists to keep terrorizing so they can continue to reap the financial benefits.
They had bin Laden on 'ice'. It's not hard to see the pattern.
The Pakistanis know the game, they will throw us a bone every now and than but keep the real players hidden and safe, if they were serious about helping us they would have delivered Osama Bin Laden to us in a box years ago when he tried to take refuge there.
But he was in hiding! Hiding right in the middle of three Paki Army bases.
The ISI-D knows it's been officially popped. The OBL thing was virtually a neon sign to that effect.
Pakistan should know it's role, before we decide to start selling weapons to India at basement bargain prices.
Good for the U.S. economy and bad for one of the biggest state sponsors of terrorism who has always played us for a full when it comes to the Pashtun terrorist faction.
The ISI-D knows it's been officially popped. The OBL thing was virtually a neon sign to that effect.
Pakistan should know it's role, before we decide to start selling weapons to India at basement bargain prices.
Good for the U.S. economy and bad for one of the biggest state sponsors of terrorism who has always played us for a full when it comes to the Pashtun terrorist faction.
As soon as we are done with Afghanistan I suggest we close down everything with Pakistan and start backing the Indians, the only reason we need Pakistan is because of Afghanistan, once we are done there there won't be a need anymore.
The ISI-D knows it's been officially popped. The OBL thing was virtually a neon sign to that effect.
Pakistan should know it's role, before we decide to start selling weapons to India at basement bargain prices.
Good for the U.S. economy and bad for one of the biggest state sponsors of terrorism who has always played us for a full when it comes to the Pashtun terrorist faction.
As soon as we are done with Afghanistan I suggest we close down everything with Pakistan and start backing the Indians, the only reason we need Pakistan is because of Afghanistan, once we are done there there won't be a need anymore.
Pakistan knows we are going to do that anyways, which is one of the reasons they are hiding these guys. It's not in their best interest for us to disengage from Afghanistan.
As soon as we are done with Afghanistan I suggest we close down everything with Pakistan and start backing the Indians, the only reason we need Pakistan is because of Afghanistan, once we are done there there won't be a need anymore.
Pakistan knows we are going to do that anyways, which is one of the reasons they are hiding these guys. It's not in their best interest for us to disengage from Afghanistan.
Yup cause they like our aid packages and billions of dollars, which is why they kept Osama hidden for all these years so they can keep getting paid. They hustled us.
The government's "extreme unhappiness" with Kayani, currently on a three-year extension, and Pasha, who received a one-year extension in service last year, is an "open secret", The News daily quoted its sources as saying. The two generals have been held responsible for forcing Pakistan to adopt an "extremely harsh stance" towards the US after last month's NATO air strike, the report said. They also "adopted a diabolically opposing stance to that of the government" on the alleged memo that sought US help to stave off a possible military coup in Pakistan in May.
The Memogate scandal could cause "extremely serious problems" for the ruling Pakistan People's Party and some top leaders in their individual capacity if it is properly investigated, the report said. "Saner voices in the inner most circles of the President and the Prime Minister" have advocated "restraint and caution" as recent events, including the serious divergence of opinion on matters of national security, have created the impression that the entire security establishment is "under attack from its own political leadership", the report added.
Commenting on the possible response of the security establishment if the two generals were fired, a source told the daily: "Nobody knows and hopefully nobody will have to find the answer to this troubling question. In fact, were such an action to take place and even if the concerned officers accepted the decision and went home, nobody knows how the institution will react." The source contended that serious national security issues were at stake and this "consideration can easily outweigh other priorities and restraints, regardless of future judicial or constitutional repercussions of any such forced retaliatory action" by the military.
Speculation about the possible removal of the generals began doing the rounds after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani criticised the army last week, saying it was unacceptable for the force to act as a "state within a state". Gilani also questioned the military's failure to detect Osama bin Laden's presence in Pakistan for six years. The report claimed key players involved in framing US foreign and military policy were playing an "active role in encouraging Islamabad into taking" the decision to sack the two generals. Former CIA official Bruce Riedel and former National Security Advisor James Jones are among those influencing both the US intelligence and military to support Pakistan in such a move, it said. The Pakistani political leadership had been assured by US leaders of full financial and diplomatic support by Washington were it to order the removal of the two generals, the report claimed.
MORE
