The "heart of the threat" to the U.S. and many other countries in the world, including India, lies in western Pakistan, a top American diplomat has said, Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told a gathering in Brussels on Saturday that the Afghan crisis could not be resolved without addressing the problem of militancy in the restive tribal region.
The starting point for the Barack Obama administration's approach to the region was to treat it as an integrated whole, a single theatre of war. "The actual people who pose a direct threat to the countries represented in this room, the people who planned 9/11, who killed Benazir Bhutto, who committed the atrocities in Mumbai, who were terrorising Swat, who probably were associated with the attack on the cricket team in Lahore, who are associated with daily outrages -- they are not in Afghanistan. They're in Pakistan," Mr. Holbrooke said.
He said these militants were based in western tribal areas "although it also extends down into Baluchistan."