US & Pakistan: The Growing Tensions

sandeepdg

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Rein in Haqqani men, US warns Pak

WASHINGTON: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressing "deep concerns" about violent attacks mounted by the Haqqani insurgent network, has again pressed the Pakistani military to take action against militant havens, US officials said.

The chairman, Adm Mike Mullen, held a two-hour private meeting late Friday with his Pakistani counterpart, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, during a military conference in Seville, Spain, where the two discussed their nations' complicated relationship.

"Admiral Mullen conveyed his deep concerns about the increasing - and increasingly brazen - activities of the Haqqani network and restated his strong desire to see the Pakistani military take action against them and their safe havens in North Waziristan," said Capt John Kirby, the chairman's special assistant for public affairs.

Relations with Pakistan have not recovered from the killing of Osama bin Laden by American commandos operating deep inside Pakistan. In recent days, American military officials said that a brazen attack on the United States Embassy compound and Nato headquarters in Kabul bore the hallmarks of the Haqqani network, a militant group based in Pakistan.

American officials have said they have compelling evidence that Haqqani fighters have received support and direction from Pakistan's ISI. Admiral Mullen has sought to improve ties with Pakistan's military leadership, and on many bilateral issues he has served as the United States government's leading interlocutor with Pakistan.

During the recent meeting in Spain between Admiral Mullen and General Kayani, the two "agreed that the relationship between our two countries remained vital to the region and that both sides had taken positive steps to improve that relationship over the past few months." NYT NEWS SERVICE

Rein in Haqqani men, US warns Pak - The Times of India
 

pmaitra

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Pakistan troops fight Taliban after US drone crash

Pakistan troops fight Taliban after US drone crash



18 September 2011
BBC News

Pakistani troops have battled Taliban fighters for the debris of a US unmanned drone which crashed in a north-western tribal area.

It was not clear whether the unmanned drone had come down because of Taliban fire or due to a technical fault.

The US does not comment on its drone missile programme, which is designed to target insurgents in the area.

It was the second drone crash in a month in Pakistan, although such incidents are rare.

The drone crashed on Saturday night close to Jangara village in South Waziristan, which lies close to the Afghan border.

'Two killed'
The Taliban said they had shot down the unmanned aircraft, but local security officials told AFP news agency it was a result of technical problems.

The debris was first taken by the Taliban, but Pakistani troops were later sent to seize it back, security sources said.

At least two militants were killed in the ensuing firefight, while one soldier was wounded, security sources told Reuters.

North and South Waziristan are regularly targeted by drone missiles.

The US says the region provides sanctuary to al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents who are involved in attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Drone attacks have escalated in the region since President Barack Obama took office in 2008. More than 100 raids were reported in the area last year.

The US does not routinely confirm drone operations, but analysts say only American forces have the capacity to deploy such aircraft in the region.

Pakistan publicly criticises drone attacks, saying they kill innocent civilians and fuel support for militants. But observers say the authorities privately condone the strikes, although there have been recent signs that they want to limit the scope of such attacks.

Source: BBC News - Pakistan troops fight Taliban after US drone crash
 

JayATL

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Yeah they want it to give it to their Massa " china" ...
 

Godless-Kafir

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Instead of wasteing time and resourses on Iraq if they attacked Pakistan, everything will be ok now!
 

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US says evidence ties Haqqani militant group to Pakistani Government

ISLAMABAD—The U.S. ambassador to Islamabad said in remarks broadcast Saturday that there is evidence linking the Haqqani insurgent network to the Pakistani government, a charge that could raise tensions in an already strained anti-terror alliance between Washington and Islamabad.

The U.S. and NATO blame the Haqqani network for many of the attacks in Afghanistan, including this week's strike on the U.S. Embassy. The group -- affiliated with both the Taliban and al-Qaida -- and its army of several thousand fighters is widely assumed to be based just over the Afghan border in Pakistan.

U.S. officials have long suspected links between the Pakistan military and the Haqqani network.

But needing Pakistani cooperation to beat al-Qaida and stabilize Afghanistan, they rarely say so publicly and as directly as Ambassador Cameron Munter did in an interview with Radio Pakistan that was broadcast Saturday
.

"The attack that took place in Kabul a few days ago that was the work of the Haqqani Network," Munter said during the interview. "And the facts, that we have said in the past, (is) that there are problems, there is evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistan government. This is something that must stop."

Pressed for what evidence the U.S. had linking Haqqani to the embassy assault, Munter said, "Well, it's just we believe that to be the case."

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman declined to comment until she had heard the interview.

The Pakistani army has resisted attacking North Waziristan and the Haqqanis because it believes the group does not pose a direct threat to the country. The army is engaged in a bloody fight elsewhere in the tribal region against militants that have responded with hundreds of suicide bombs around the country in recent years.

Officers say that making enemies of the Haqqanis now could tip the country into even greater turmoil.

Experts say U.S. plans to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014 and its current efforts to seek peace with the Afghan Taliban make it even less likely that Pakistan will act anytime soon.

The army also believes it will be able to use the group, with which it has ties going back to the U.S.-backed resistance against Soviet rule in Afghanistan, to ensure its archenemy India does not gain a foothold there once the American troops leave.

In a statement Friday at a NATO meeting in Spain, Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani appeared to allude to that, saying Pakistan had a "sovereign right to formulate policy in accordance with its national interests and the wishes of the Pakistani people."

American is under pressure to show success in Afghanistan ahead of its planned troop withdrawal in 2014, and has been pressing the Pakistani military to act against the Haqqani network for at least two years, without success. The attack on the Kabul embassy by a team of assailants exposed further tensions in a relationship still foundering following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May.

On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed frustration with Pakistani inaction against the insurgent network and issued what was construed here as a veiled warning that Washington may take unilateral action against the militants. The Foreign Ministry said his remarks were "out of line" with the two nations' anti-terror cooperation.

US says evidence ties militant group to Pakistan - Boston.com
 

ace009

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No Illusive - Even the best of ABMs are only about 50% effective. If Pakistan launches 10 nuke missiles on Delhi or Bombay, then chances of at least a few of them reaching the target is high. And the common belief is that Pakistan does not have good tactical missiles, but decent strategic missiles - courtesy of China. Which means that they may not be able to stop IA armor from reaching Lahore or Islamabad, but they cane nuke the shit out of unramed civilians in India. That is why India does not want to call their bluff. Even one fanatical, fundamentalist general in charge of the nukes can spell disaster for India.
USA is not THAT concerned about Pakistani nukes (as long as they are in government hands) for the following reaosns -
1. USA is 10,000 miles away and no Pak missile can reach that far.
2. USA has a much better ABM defense than any other country in the world.
3. USA also has a stockpile of 5000 nuclear warheads, some of them large enough to wipe out Lahore by itself. And they have missiles to deliver it up the Pakistani President's ass!
4. A largescale US nuclear strike on Pakistan would not cause radiational fallout in USA (but any nuclear attack in Pakistan will affect next door India).
5. US spy satellites and intelligence networks can detect a Pakistani nuclear launch within minutes. India still does not have this capability.

So, in short, India needs to be very very alarmed about Pakistani nukes (a 4 in a scale of 0-5) while the USA can just be "alarmed" (2 in a scale of 0-5) ...
 

agentperry

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tell me something new. this thing is obvious until unless pakland secure few missile and nuke during american invasion and then detonate it somehow in american base within pakland.
 

pmaitra

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Both countries had nukes during the Kargil War. Thankfully, the conflict remained conventional. It is my guess either government will think hard before using nukes. If some rogue regime comes to power, then it is a different story.
 

Galaxy

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U.S. sharpens warning to Pakistan

U.S. sharpens warning to Pakistan

As U.S. commanders have claimed progress against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, the allied Haqqani group has stepped up its efforts in the eastern part of the country and is now considered the principal threat to U.S. forces.

The organization was formed by Jalaluddin Haqqani as one of the resistance groups fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, with U.S. and Pakistani assistance. In the Afghan civil war that followed, Haqqani sided with the Taliban forces that took power in Kabul in 1996. His fighters fled after the Taliban overthrow in late 2001 to Pakistan, where U.S. intelligence officials think they are in close coordination with al-Qaeda forces.

Pakistani intelligence maintained close connections to the network, now operationally led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the founder's son, as a hedge against the future in Afghanistan.

Two years ago, President Obama, in a letter to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, warned that Pakistan's intelligence ties to extremist groups, including the Haqqanis, could "not continue." At the time, Obama promised an expanded strategic relationship with Pakistan in exchange for action.

Since then, U.S. military and civilian aid to Pakistan has increased significantly, and the administration has repeatedly described Pakistan as a crucial partner in the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. U.S. diplomats have tried to foster working relationships between the often-estranged Afghan and Pakistani governments, as well as between Pakistan and India, its historical adversary.

Intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation between the two governments has ebbed and flowed over that period, reaching a low point this year with several events, including the shooting death of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor in January and the unilateral U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his suburban Pakistani hideout in May.

Several months of open estrangement were followed by a slow climb back to cooperation — although not against the Haqqanis — by late August. CIA officials noted some improvement in the intelligence relationship, although Pakistan has continued to refuse entreaties for long-term, multiple-entry CIA visas. Even as they have traded public barbs, U.S. and Pakistani military officials reached a tentative agreement this week to return at least 100 of about 200 U.S. military trainers whom Pakistan expelled earlier in the year.

But recent attacks attributed to the Haqqani network in eastern Afghanistan, culminating in the embassy assault last week, appear to have abruptly changed attitudes within the senior levels of the administration.

On Saturday, in a message approved at senior levels in Washington, Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, told a radio interviewer in Islamabad that the United States had evidence "linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistan government."

Although U.S. officials said they are continuing to look for a way forward with Pakistan, at least two factors are likely to narrow the administration's options. As the conflict continues, Pakistan has fewer friends in Congress, where budget-cutting zeal increasingly coincides with pressure to stop funding assistance to Pakistan.

At the same time, the administration has grown increasingly determined to ease its way out of the Afghanistan conflict, and has diminishing patience for what it views as Pakistani impediments.

"What's different is that we have begun a transition" in Afghanistan, one administration official said. "We've got a credible program to build an effective Afghan security force, and transition is happening, whether people like it or not."

"For those who are wedded to the past — past relationships, past support structures — and for those who would destabilize Afghanistan," the official said, "they've got to take account of the fact that things are different."

As U.S. commanders have claimed progress against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, the allied Haqqani group has stepped up its efforts in the eastern part of the country and is now considered the principal threat to U.S. forces.

The organization was formed by Jalaluddin Haqqani as one of the resistance groups fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, with U.S. and Pakistani assistance. In the Afghan civil war that followed, Haqqani sided with the Taliban forces that took power in Kabul in 1996. His fighters fled after the Taliban overthrow in late 2001 to Pakistan, where U.S. intelligence officials think they are in close coordination with al-Qaeda forces.

Pakistani intelligence maintained close connections to the network, now operationally led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the founder's son, as a hedge against the future in Afghanistan.

Two years ago, President Obama, in a letter to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, warned that Pakistan's intelligence ties to extremist groups, including the Haqqanis, could "not continue." At the time, Obama promised an expanded strategic relationship with Pakistan in exchange for action.

Since then, U.S. military and civilian aid to Pakistan has increased significantly, and the administration has repeatedly described Pakistan as a crucial partner in the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. U.S. diplomats have tried to foster working relationships between the often-estranged Afghan and Pakistani governments, as well as between Pakistan and India, its historical adversary.

Intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation between the two governments has ebbed and flowed over that period, reaching a low point this year with several events, including the shooting death of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor in January and the unilateral U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his suburban Pakistani hideout in May.

Several months of open estrangement were followed by a slow climb back to cooperation — although not against the Haqqanis — by late August. CIA officials noted some improvement in the intelligence relationship, although Pakistan has continued to refuse entreaties for long-term, multiple-entry CIA visas. Even as they have traded public barbs, U.S. and Pakistani military officials reached a tentative agreement this week to return at least 100 of about 200 U.S. military trainers whom Pakistan expelled earlier in the year.

But recent attacks attributed to the Haqqani network in eastern Afghanistan, culminating in the embassy assault last week, appear to have abruptly changed attitudes within the senior levels of the administration.

On Saturday, in a message approved at senior levels in Washington, Cameron Munter, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, told a radio interviewer in Islamabad that the United States had evidence "linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistan government."

Although U.S. officials said they are continuing to look for a way forward with Pakistan, at least two factors are likely to narrow the administration's options. As the conflict continues, Pakistan has fewer friends in Congress, where budget-cutting zeal increasingly coincides with pressure to stop funding assistance to Pakistan.

At the same time, the administration has grown increasingly determined to ease its way out of the Afghanistan conflict, and has diminishing patience for what it views as Pakistani impediments.

"What's different is that we have begun a transition" in Afghanistan, one administration official said. "We've got a credible program to build an effective Afghan security force, and transition is happening, whether people like it or not."

"For those who are wedded to the past — past relationships, past support structures — and for those who would destabilize Afghanistan," the official said, "they've got to take account of the fact that things are different."

U.S. sharpens warning to Pakistan - The Washington Post
 
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Pakistan ISI urged attacks on U.S. targets

Pakistan ISI urged attacks on U.S. targets: officials | Reuters

(Reuters) - U.S. officials say there is mounting evidence that Pakistan's chief intelligence agency has been encouraging a Pakistan-based militant network to attack U.S. targets.

The allegations, if fully confirmed, heighten a painful dilemma for President Barack Obama's administration. Washington is under growing political pressure to take action against the Haqqani network after a spate of deadly attacks U.S. officials have attributed to it. These include last week's strike against the American Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Some U.S. intelligence reporting alleges that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) specifically directed, or urged, the Haqqani network to carry out the September 13 attack on the embassy and a NATO headquarters in Kabul, according two U.S. officials and a source familiar with recent U.S.-Pakistan official contacts. However, officials cautioned that this information is uncorroborated.

Another U.S. official familiar with internal government assessments said that at the very least, the available intelligence strongly suggests the ISI has been egging on elements of the Haqqani network to launch attacks at American targets in the region.

While American officials have aired allegations of ties between the ISI and the Haqqani network in recent days, they have not publicly cited evidence that the Pakistani agency, or elements of it, urged its proxy to attack U.S. targets.

While the ISI's motives in any such attacks are not clear, Pakistan has long wanted to play a major role in Afghanistan's future after the departure of NATO troops, and to counter what it sees as the growing influence there of arch-rival India.

This week, top U.S. officials, including Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, demanded that Pakistan's leaders take action against the Haqqanis, who are based in that country's tribal areas and are considered among the most dangerous insurgent groups in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Still, despite the threats and an intensified campaign of violence that threatens U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, the Obama administration has few options for increasing pressure on Pakistan and none of them are good.

After years of efforts to cajole, coax and threaten Pakistan into cracking down on a host of militants operating from within its borders failed to bear fruit, U.S. officials are exasperated.

For the United States one alternative -- another cross-border raid, like the Navy SEAL mission that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May -- may be tempting in some quarters. But the risks are high and the backlash from Pakistan would be fierce, almost certainly harming what counter-terrorism cooperation exists.

"LITTLE LEVERAGE"

"The (U.S.) administration has thrown everything at this -- high-level meetings, tons of money, all of these overtures, and it hasn't gotten us anywhere," said Caroline Wadhams, a security analyst in Washington.

"This can't go on forever," she said, "but the problem is that we have so little leverage."

"Pakistan values its relationship with the U.S. and is committed to eliminating terrorism in Afghanistan and from our soil," said A senior Pakistani official. "We will look at all evidence shared by the U.S. side and deal harshly with anyone and everyone responsible for terrorism."

The long-simmering tension between the sometime allies, sometime adversaries came to a head last week after the brazen attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. It was a major blow as Obama hopes to nudge Afghanistan toward stability and gradually bring home U.S. forces after a decade of war.

Since then, American officials, including Obama's ambassador in Islamabad and Mullen, his top military officer, have issued unusually blunt criticisms of Pakistan's failure to curb the Haqqani group -- and made frank statements accusing Islamabad of links to the group.

Mullen, in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Tuesday he had pressed Pakistan's army chief in a four-hour conversation on Friday to break the country's links with the Haqqanis.

"We covered ... the need for the Haqqani Network to disengage, specifically the need for the ISI to disconnect from Haqqani and from this proxy war that they're fighting," Mullen said.

The Haqqanis, just one of a host of militant groups that have used western Pakistan as a base for attacks in Afghanistan, are seen as allied to both al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Supported at times in the past by the CIA, they have had long-standing ties to the ISI. [ID:nL3E7G524Z]

On Tuesday, regional tensions soared even higher when a suicide bomber killed Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former Afghan president who had headed efforts to secure a peace deal with the Taliban.

While responsibility for the attack remains unclear, the shocking assassination threatened to do even more to reverse a tentative thaw in perpetually dismal U.S.-Pakistani ties a few months after Osama bin Laden was killed near Islamabad. The initial conclusion of U.S. government experts is that Rabbani's assassination was carried out by Afghan Taliban and had no connection to the Haqqani network.

Vali Nasr, who until this spring was a senior official in the U.S. State Department's Afghanistan-Pakistan office, said efforts to prompt Pakistani action against militants with increased public pressure had fallen short.

"They are not blinking," he said
 

maomao

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Failed state pakistan breeds terrorists then these pigs bit the ass of the pigs who feed them.....pakistan never learns the lesson, more so - their shameless army considers their citizens expendable, hence to stash all the Dollar aid/bhik they have created this Indian Bogeyman to scare their ultra-Islamic 'pure-pious' breed of awam/citizens, i.e. the fear of Hindu rule over pious pure terrorist bigots of a citizenry of pakistan! It's a vicious circle as their bigoted awam seeks Hindu blood so pakistan army delivers then through terrorism against India and pakistani bigoted awam sacrifices their own to satisfy the pakistan army's dollar hunger (never asks about their own well-being/rights/basic necessities, this phenomina is found only n pakistan - how religion can be used to create living dead should be a case-study on pakistan).....Though a shameless state of affairs; however, you cannot expect more from these pious wannabe islamic people living in 7th century Bedouin era! True symbiotic-parasite nature among pakistanis from all work of life, eating each other to satisfy their urges....Now to milk US further, they have stepped up attacks on the US soldiers, and I see US govt./ Boobama administration behaving in the same manner as pakistani army, any sane Super-Power would have flattened the land occupied by such wretched people called pakjabis!
 

Mr.Ryu

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WoW great now US found what we where telling them for decades, one after another every think PAK called us of just Baseless Allegations/Bluff are now getting out in face of US in hard way.

And again ISI have learn no lesson never encourage Terror against other one day they will turn against our own people, Soon Haqqani network will eat PAK from inside.
 

Singh

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Pakistan seeks credible evidence against sons of the soil Haqqanis

Pakistan seeks credible evidence against Haqqani group

ISLAMABAD: Brushing aside US demand for initiating action against Haqqani group Pakistan has said US will have to provide credible evidence about presence of Haqqani group in its territory.

FBI director Robbert Miller along with a delegation met interior minister Rehman Malik in interior ministry Wednesday. US delegation comprised deputy ambassador of US in Pakistan and FBI and CIA authorities. Pakistan delegation was led by Rehman Malik.

Talking to media men after his meeting with Rehman Malik, FBI Director said "we will have to make coordinated efforts to stamp out terrorism wherever it is taking place in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. Cooperation with Pakistan would also be bolstered, he underlined.

He told he had held extensive talks with Rehman Malik with reference to Haqqani group and other terrorist organisations. On the other hand FBI would step up its cooperation with FIA so that concerted efforts being employed by both the countries against terrorists could be improved further, he underlined. FBI was in constant contact with FIA and it would be further expanded in future, he held.

Rehman Malik said Pakistan had rendered more sacrifices in war against terrorism than any country in the world. Not only national economy had been adversely affected but also over 35,000 citizens and security forces personnel had given sacrifices in this war. Cooperation with US would continue in the war on terror and intelligence sharing between Pakistan and US on terrorists would be further improved, he said.

Rehman Malik said Haqqani group was product of Soviet and Afghan war and it did not exist any where in Pakistan. US should provide information to Pakistan if it had any on this count and Pakistan would initiate action in this respect on its own, he maintained.

Sources told Online both the sides agreed on further streamlining the intelligence sharing between Pakistan and US with regard to the terrorists.


ONLINE - International News Network
 

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Mullen: Pakistanis export violence to Afghanistan

The top U.S. military officer on Thursday accused Pakistan of "exporting violence" to Afghanistan and said this puts in jeopardy not only the frayed U.S.-Pakistani partnership against terrorism but also the prospects for a successful outcome to the decade-old war in Afghanistan.

In his final congressional testimony before retiring next week, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said success in Afghanistan is threatened not only by the Pakistani government's support for the Haqqani network and other al-Qaida-aligned extremist groups but also by Afghan government corruption.

"If we continue to draw down forces apace while such public and systemic corruption is left unchecked," Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "I believe we risk leaving behind a government in which we cannot reasonably expect Afghans to have faith. At best this would lead to localized conflicts inside the country; at worst it could lead to government collapse and civil war."

Mullen said Pakistan's government has chosen to "use violent extremism as an instrument of policy," adding that "by exporting violence, they have eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being."

Testifying alongside Mullen, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also decried Pakistani support for the Haqqani network, and he said Pakistani authorities have been told in unequivocal terms that the U.S. will not tolerate a continuation of the group's cross-border attacks. Panetta said the message was delivered recently by new CIA director David Petraeus in a meeting with the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI.

"They must take steps to prevent the safe haven that the Haqqanis are using," Panetta said. "We simply cannot allow these kinds of terrorists to be able to go into Afghanistan, attack our forces and then return to Pakistan for safe haven."

Panetta also said that U.S. and Afghan forces are searching for ways to better defend against spectacular attacks by insurgents, like the assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul last week.

In his first congressional testimony since taking office, Panetta said it is important to limit insurgents' ability to create the perception that security in the Afghan capital is deteriorating.

Overall, he said, the U.S. and NATO effort to stabilize Afghanistan is "headed in the right direction."

In recent days administration officials have taken a harsher tone toward Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of maintaining links with the Haqqani network, a band of Islamist fighters that the U.S. says are behind attacks in Afghanistan, including last week's attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

Mullen, who has met frequently with his Pakistani counterpart, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, over the past few years, said in prepared remarks for the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the Haqqanis have "long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government" and are "in many ways a strategic arm" of Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. He said the Haqqanis were behind several recent major attacks in Afghanistan, including the embassy attack and a Sept. 10 truck bomb that killed five Afghans and injured 77 U.S. soldiers.

Mullen said earlier this week there is a "proxy connection" between Pakistani intelligence services and the Haqqanis, meaning the militants are secretly doing the Pakistanis' bidding.

"The Haqqani piece of this has got to be reversed — period," he told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Mullen said he delivered that message to Kayani last week during a meeting in Spain.

The increasingly tough U.S. rhetoric — particularly the accusation of a proxy relationship — reflects a U.S. belief that Pakistani intelligence in recent months has more aggressively facilitated attacks by the Haqqanis on Afghan and American targets inside Afghanistan, one senior military official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said it's unclear whether Pakistani leaders intend to heed U.S. warnings.


Late last week, Panetta asserted that the U.S. will do whatever necessary to stop the Haqqani network attacks on U.S. forces. He would not say whether that means that the U.S. will take new military action, but there already has been an increase in U.S. drone strikes into Pakistan's border regions.

Panetta's remarks were interpreted as a veiled warning that the U.S. may resort again to unilateral action against the insurgents. Such public warnings, however, may only damage anti-terror cooperation between the two nations, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Tehmina Janjua said.

After the U.S. raided Osama bin Laden's secret compound inside Pakistan in May — without alerting Pakistani authorities in advance — relations deteriorated further. Pakistan suspended a program under which U.S. special operations forces helped train Pakistani forces in counterterrorist tactics. U.S. officials on Wednesday disclosed a compromise deal to slash the number of U.S. military personnel allowed in Pakistan to between 100 and 150, about half of what it had been. The number of special operations trainers would fall from 140 to fewer than 10.

The Haqqani connection in Pakistan, and the haven that Pakistan provides for other Islamic extremist groups, including the Taliban, are major impediments to U.S. success in Afghanistan. Another major worry is corruption inside the Afghan government, as the U.S. and its NATO allies proceed with a plan to hand over full responsibility for security and other functions to the Afghans by the end of 2014. By that date, all U.S. combat forces are to have been withdrawn.



Mullen: Pakistanis export violence to Afghanistan
 

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