US lawmakers are hopeful of political reconciliation in Afghanistan in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, but fear that the fight against extremism is floundering in Pakistan.
US Senator John Kerry, who recently visited the region, said that the killing of bin Laden by American troops in Pakistan, along with "security gains" in the Taliban's historic stronghold of southern Afghanistan, "have created some political space."
"This is a critical moment in the war in Afghanistan. It's important that we seize that opportunity," The News quoted Kerry, as saying at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs.
"Middle- and low-level Taliban fighters, many of them want to come in from the battlefield. We need to work with the Afghan government in order to make sure that those who wish to lay down their arms can, in fact, do so," he said.
But Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts and close ally of Obama, said that the United States should be concerned about extremists in Pakistan, and the ease with which they cross the porous border with Afghanistan.
"It will take adroit and persistent diplomacy to convince the Pakistani military leaders that the real threat to their sovereignty comes not from its eastern border and not from across the Atlantic, but it comes from violent extremists in their own country," he said.
Senator Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the same committee, questioned why the US was spending some 120 billion dollars a year in Afghanistan, where some 100,000 US troops are deployed.
"The question before us is whether Afghanistan is strategically important enough to justify the lives and massive resources that we are spending there, especially given that few terrorists in Afghanistan have global designs or reach," the Indiana lawmaker said.
"To the extent that our purpose is to confront the global terrorist threat, we should be refocusing resources on Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, parts of North Africa and other locations," he pointed out.
Lawmakers voiced concern about what they saw as support from Pakistan for the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a vehemently anti-Indian terrorist group accused of carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.
Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland, pointed to an ongoing trial in Chicago where David Coleman Headley-who admitted scouting sites for the Mumbai attacks-said that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) supported the LeT.
"I don't know how the United States can just ignore this. It seems to me that we need to be able to confront Pakistan's support for terrorist organizations," Cardin said.
At a separate House hearing, Representative Ed Royce worried that elements in Pakistan's military supported bin Laden and may share nuclear secrets with Al-Qaeda in the future.
"In the past 10 years, Pakistan has received nearly $20 billion in US aid. Simply put, our Pakistan policy isn't working," said the Republican from California, who heads a House subcommittee on terrorism. ANI
