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| India-Pakistan |
| TTP video indicates cross-border links, says Holbrooke |
| 2010-01-18 |
| [Dawn] A video of a Pakistani Taliban leader with the bomber who killed CIA agents in Afghanistan indicated cross-border links between Afghan, Pakistani and Al Qaeda militants, the US regional envoy said on Sunday. Picked right up on that, didn't he? Special Representative Richard Holbrooke said in an interview in Kabul that "shadowy but unmistakable" links between groups exposed by the video helped explain why the United States and its allies were fighting in Afghanistan. They're not all that shadowy from here. Maybe the light's better? The video released this month showed the Jordanian suicide bomber posing with Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, before carrying out the Dec 30 attack which killed seven CIA employees, the deadliest strike on the agency in decades. "When people say to us, 'why are you fighting in Afghanistan when the goal is to destroy Al Qaeda and they are in Pakistan?' I think this incident highlights the explanation for what we are doing, because there are some shadowy but unmistakeable connections here," he said. How about: al-Qaeda is in both Pakistain and Afghanistan, primarily in the Pashtun areas. Operations of the Pak and the Afghan "Taliban," along with Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami and the Haqqani Group, are coodinated by al-Qaeda. Pak terror orgs such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Pak HuJI have either been subsumed into al-Q or, if they retain independence -- like Lashkar-e-Taiba -- are acting within the same harness as the "Talibs." The video could show "the very close links between the Haqqani group, Mehsud, Al Qaeda, and it underlines the rationale for our strategy", he said. "That was a horrifying tape." "They've all claimed credit for it," he said of the various militant groups with some possible hand in the CIA attack. Asked whether he had put more pressure on Islamabad to do more in border regions to rout insurgents, Mr Holbrooke said Pakistan's military was stretched "very thin". "I think they are well aware of the fact that the presence on their soil of the Afghan Taliban and its leadership is not in their own security interests. They know how important this is. They are our allies," he added. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Mr Holbrooke said Pakistan's military was stretched "very thin". On their western borders, yes.... |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-01-18 17:03 |