"We dids" count. "We're gonnas" don't.
U.S president Barack Obama Thursday vowed to continue targeting Daesh outfits in Afghanistan. This comes as the group remains an emerging threat to Afghanistan and international security.Referring to his recent decision of keeping the current level of U.S troops in Afghanistan, U.S leader said one of the reasons for keeping forces in the country was to eliminate Daesh militants.
"In Afghanistan one of the reasons that I decided partly to maintain our current force level so that we can keep eliminating ISIS (Daesh) presence there and we delivered another blow last month when we took out a top ISIL (Daesh) leader in Afghanistan Omar Khalifa," said Obama.
Washington has also made repeated calls to Pakistan to fight terrorists without differentiating between them – including that of the Haqqani terror network.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense (MoD) has hailed Washington for withholding a $300 million USD military assistance package to Pakistan. In addition it called on the international community to mount more pressure on Islamabad in order to get it to change its approach towards fighting terrorism.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that it would withhold $300 million in military assistance to Pakistan.
Analysts believe that the decision is apparently a huge blow to US-Pakistan ties and a sign of anger against Islamabad for not undertaking necessary actions against the militant groups – such as the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network that continue to fuel violence in Afghan cities.
Obama said that despite the fact Daesh is facing major setbacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and that it has lost major swaths of territory in these countries, the group still remains a serious threat to international security as it wants to destabilize the world.
Washington believes that among Daesh fighters battling the Afghan and U.S forces in Afghanistan many are Pakistani militants.
In addition, the U.S department of state has raised concerns over the existence of terrorist hideouts inside Pakistan.
"Pakistan has taken and is taking steps to counter terrorist violence and certainly focusing on those groups that threaten Pakistanis and Pakistani stability, they have the military shut down some of these safe havens, they have restored government control in parts of Pakistan that were used by terrorists as safe havens for years and these are important steps that contribute rather to security interest in the region and they have to come at a cost of Pakistani lives lost," US department of state spokesman said.
This comes after Afghan officials have repeatedly blasted Pakistan over what they call double standards in their war against terrorism, a claim that Pakistan has repeatedly denied.
"Majority of terrorists are equipped and funded inside the Pakistani soil and conduct operations in our country. World countries must mount intense pressure on Pakistan and impose sanctions on it," said Dawlat Waziri, spokesman to ministry of defense.
According to the defense ministry, the Afghan security forces are battling those militants who are equipped and funded by Pakistan as Pakistan continues to harbor their families and relatives.