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Petreus: 'Pakistan realises Taliban threat'
The four major elements of Pakistani society -- the government, the opposition, the military and the civilians -- realise that Pakistan must oppose and confront the Taliban, who pose a threat to the Pakistani state, US Central Command chief General David Petraeus has said.During an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Central newsroom Director Jay Tolson, he said that while the people of Pakistan had once hoped the Taliban would be able to provide swift justice, they now realise the Taliban only foster oppression. He said the Pakistan Army was also aggressively prosecuting its campaign in NWFP and FATA. He said this bode well for Pakistan as a country that is tolerant and not one in which "religious, ultraconservative or extremist figures can tell the people how to pray, how to groom themselves, what music they can listen to, and all the rest of that". Better job: To questions on whether the Afghan government needed to be held to certain non-negotiable standards of liberal democracy and universal human rights, he said the Afghan government had to do a better job to achieve the support of its own people. He said the government had undertaken some "ambitious" anti-corruption programmes, but it has yet to be seen as being worthy of the people's support. The CENTCOM chief acknowledged that security forces needed to do more to ensure innocent civilians were not killed in significant numbers during operations in Afghanistan. However, he added, "We shouldn't have our soldiers go into a fight with one arm tied behind their back." He said he had initiated an investigation and would review its findings to see how the directives could be modified to ensure the forces were not endangering the battle for hearts and minds. To questions on why the US had been unable to cut the terrorist funding from various Gulf states, he said the Hawala system made tracking any funding very difficult. Referring to the demand of Afghan insurgents for a US pullout as a condition for peace talks, he said the US was trying to differentiate between the "reconcilables" and the irreconcilables, adding "you should not shrink from the fact that the irreconcilables have to be killed, captured or run out of the country". He said the US believed the Iraqi forces could take the peace process forward following the June 20 deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq's cities. Posted by: Fred 2009-05-28 |
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