WASHINGTON: Keeping up pressure on Pakistan to strike at militant
groups in North Waziristan, US has warned if Islamabad does not become a
part of the solution, it could be branded as part of the problem.
Pointing
out that a "sort of witches brew of militant groups" was sheltering in
the rugged area, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele
Flournoy said US is engaged in a very "candid and intensive" discussions
with Pakistan about how they can together deal with some of these
groups.
"Insurgency continues to benefit from sanctuaries and
support inside Pakistan. This has contributed to rise of cross-border
incidents and the security situation in Regional Command East remains
tenuous as a result," Flournoy said.
"Safe havens along the
border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are a very serious problem, and
they are at the top of our agenda in our engagement with the Pakistani
government," she said.
Labelling the tribal areas along the
border with Afghanistan as "under governed" regions, the top Pentagon
official said, "there are groups operating in these areas -- a sort of
witches brew of militant groups that do very much pose a threat, not
only to our campaign in Afghanistan and Afghans future stability, but
also I would argue to the future stability and viability of Pakistan
itself."
She said it was in Pakistan’s interest to have a friendly, stable, and secure Afghanistan on its border.
"But
that’s not something they’ve experienced historically for a very long
time. So we have a lot of work to do to convince them that that outcome
as possible and that it’s something that they should be part of
achieving," she said.
The Pentagon official said it was
unacceptable to US to have pockets along the border where militants come
across and attack Afghans, attack US interests, the embassy for
example, attack our soldiers.
"We want to do this in cooperation
with Pakistan that this has become a serious force protection issue for
us, and we will pursue means necessary to deal with this problem,"
Flournoy said.
The Pentagon official said even though the US has
several billions of dollars of security assistance in the pipeline,
very little of that is being delivered to Pakistan now because most of
its equipment deliveries require training at the receiving end.
"Well,
Pakistan, in the wake of the bin Laden raid and other things, asked us
to pull all our trainers back. So we can’t impart training on the
equipment. So we can’t deliver the equipment. So this is blocking the
delivery of a lot of assistance that’s already in the pipeline," she
said.
The US official also said that some financial payments
owed to the Pakistani government had not been released for the last two
quarters because we need to see concrete progress on some of our
counter-terrorism objectives together.
"I believe that we can be
successful in Afghanistan even with some degree of continued safe
havens in Pakistan, but it will be much more difficult and much more
resource intensive to sustain that success," she said.
But, the
Pentagon official declared that Washington would continue to degrade the
insurgency and put pressure on safe havens in Pakistan in a way that
will reduce that threat, she said. Online
