'US boosting Afghan defence against Pakistan'

[LETHALFORCE]

‘US boosting Afghan defence against Pakistan’ | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online

WASHINGTON - Accusing Pakistan of trying to have a say in Afghan affairs, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stated that the US was building up Afghanistan's capacity to defend itself against regional and other players pushing to gain influence in the country.

Clinton told a Congressional panel that Pakistan does not want Afghanistan to become a satellite of India, and that whatever happens in the war-torn country will not affect Pakistani strategic interests.
'So it (Pakistan) has in the past invested in a certain amount of instability in Afghanistan', she said in her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday during a hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Analysts saw her statements as biased.

While pointing her finger at Pakistan, she glossed over Indian interference not only in Afghanistan but through it also in Pakistan, they pointed out. Having destroyed Afghanistan over the past 10 years, one expert said the US is now attempting to portray itself as a well-wisher of the country. In her testimony, Hillary Clinton said: 'It (Pakistan) also does not want Afghanistan to become a satellite of India, you know. India and Afghanistan have a historical affinity. And historically, Afghanistan has supported elements within Afghanistan, which Pakistan has seen as inimical to its own interests'.

'So if Pakistan could be assured that what would be left would be favourable to and even, in their view, subservient to Pakistani interests, that would be fine with them. The Indians aren't going to sit around and accept that. The Uzbeks and the Tajiks are not going to sit around and just accept that. So part of what we have been doing is to try to build up capacity within Afghanistan so it is strong enough to defend itself against all comers, but without falling back into civil war, because particularly the Northern Alliance constituents believe that they are threatened by Pakistan and the Pashtuns', she stated.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

As US plans Afghanistan withdrawal, more attention will be directed at Pakistan - The Washington Post

As US plans Afghanistan withdrawal, more attention will be directed at Pakistan

ISLAMABAD — As the U.S. looks ahead to its phased withdrawal from Afghanistan, even more attention is being directed toward Pakistan, where Obama administration officials say al-Qaida and its allies are still plotting attacks against the West.

They argue that threat has been effectively neutralized in Afghanistan, a key justification for President Barack Obama's announcement Wednesday that the U.S. will withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next summer. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 because al-Qaida used it as the base to launch the 9/11 attacks.

Afghanistan could take on new significance for the U.S. as a base to launch unilateral strikes against militants inside neighboring Pakistan, an unstable nuclear-armed country that many analysts say is more strategically important than Afghanistan.

That future has become more likely as the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. has deteriorated following the American raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden not far from the Pakistani capital last month. The operation humiliated Pakistan, which cut back on counterterrorism cooperation with the U.S., a popular move in a country where anti-American sentiment is rife.

"We haven't seen a terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan for the past seven or eight years," said a senior administration official in a briefing given to reporters in Washington before Obama's speech. "The threat has come from Pakistan over the past half-dozen years or so, and longer."

One of the most high-profile attempted attacks against the U.S. homeland coming from Pakistan recently was by Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American who tried to set off a car bomb in New York's Times Square last year. He allegedly traveled to Pakistan's tribal areas and coordinated his attack with the Pakistani Taliban.

Since Pakistan effectively prohibits American troops inside the country and has been a reluctant ally in targeting militants the U.S. deems a threat, Washington has increasingly relied on covert CIA drone missile strikes to target al-Qaida and Taliban fighters holed up in Pakistan's mountainous border region with Afghanistan.

The U.S. refuses to acknowledge the drone program in Pakistan, but Obama alluded to its effectiveness in his speech, saying "together with the Pakistanis, we have taken out more than half of al-Qaida's leadership."

But the future of the drone program in Pakistan could be threatened by pervasive anti-American sentiment and anger over the U.S. commando raid that killed bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad on May 2.

The drones are extremely unpopular in Pakistan, and lawmakers took the opportunity to demand the government, which is widely believed to allow the drones to take off from bases inside the country, halt the program.

That demand found resonance with Pakistanis, nearly 70 percent of whom view the U.S. as an enemy despite billions of dollars in American aid, according to a recent poll conducted after the bin Laden raid by the Washington-based Pew Research Center. Only 12 percent of Pakistanis have a positive view of the U.S., according to the poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

 

[debasree]

if they want to fight each other ,our burden will be less,and we can concentrate our noreast flank more.

 

[ganesh177]

If karzai govt of afghanistan shows some promise of stable and strong administration they will be gifted with some deadly weapons by USA , russia and india as well to defend itself against the terrorism of pakistan.

Karzai blames Pakistan for rocket attacks across border



Rahim Faiez
The Boston Globe
June 27, 2011 ET

KAB*UL — Pres*ident Hamid Karzai accused Pakistan yes*ter*day of firing 470 rockets into two east*ern Afghan provinces over the past three weeks, a deadly rain of artillery that Afghan of*ficials said killed 36 people, including 12 chil*dren.
The attacks came in ar*eas of Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, where NATO forces have with*drawn and where Pakistani Tal*iban moved in behind flee*ing civil*ians, Afghan bor*der of*ficials said.
Karzai indicated Pakistani govern*ment forces are responsible for the bombard*ment, and "they should be stopped im*me*diately.''
In response to the Pakistani barrage, Afghan secu*rity forces in the east*ern provinces of Khost and Paktika fired artillery across the bor*der at least twice on Friday, spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.

 

[Ray]

The US is withdrawing, but they will be leaving behind what Gates had said, 'enduring bases'. In other words, bases that will be used to react to any adverse situation as they have done in Iraq.

The aim of the US is very clear they will not allow any regional country to take Afghanistan into their 'sphere of influence'.

What India could do is increase what is called 'soft power' which will sway the local sympathy towards India.