WASHINGTON: Asking Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency ISI to
severe ties with terrorist organisations, in particular the ’’Haqqani
network’’, top US military commander Admiral Mike Mullen has said
America was prepared to take all appropriate measures to protect its
people in the region.
"The ISI has been doing this -- working
for -- supporting proxies for an extended period of time. It is a
strategy in the country and I think that strategic approach has to
shift in the future," Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said in response to a question at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, a Washington-based think tank.
"It’s my
own view, it’s going in the wrong direction in addition to those that
they they’re proxy issues associated with Haqqani and others. There’s
absolutely no doubt in my mind that Haqqani was behind the attack on
the American embassy the other day. Haqqani was behind the truck bomb
attack which injured 77 US soldiers, killed five Afghans.
"The
Taliban have an atrocious record for killing Afghan citizens. And that
should never be lost. So we’re very focused on that. The Haqqani piece
of this has got to be reversed," he said.
Mullen said US is
prepared to "take appropriate action to protect our men and women,
first of all, in the fight and certainly to protect the Afghan citizens
who have been devastated by this network as well".
He, however,
refrained from going into any specifics on this issue. "I would say
that broadly but I would never go into the specifics of what that would
be, as much as you would like me to do that," he said.
Mullen
refuted reports that lack of helicopters prevented Pakistan from taking
action against terrorists in North Waziristan. "I don’t think there’s
direct link between improving their helicopter fleet and the decision
that I think the ISI has to make to strategically disengage. "Over the
course of the -- certainly the time I’ve been chairman, I don’t know
what the exact number is -- but there’s a large amount of equipment
that has been delivered to the Pakistani military," Mullen said. Online
