Pak Taliban fighting back by killing innocent civilians: Petraeus
By ANITuesday, April 27, 2010
WASHINGTON - Though the Pakistan Army’s offensive against the Taliban and other extremist groups has shown ‘considerable progress’, troops are facing a tough time tackling the insurgents as they are offering a strong resistance and fighting it back by killing civilians, a top US military commander has said.
In an interview to the PBS, US Central Command commander General David Petraeus acknowledged Pakistan’s action against the Taliban in ungoverned tribal areas, but added that the extremists are fighting back by killing innocent civilians in the region and other parts of the country.
” Pakistani armed forces have shown real progress, but clearly it is very tough work. The extremists in Pakistan, including the Taliban and their confederates, had sought to fight back by doing what they do, which is carry out acts of indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians,” The Dawn quoted General Petraeus, as saying.
General Petraeus, the US military commander for the Afghan and Iraq wars, also desisted from describing the ongoing ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan as ‘real success’.
” I would be careful about describing, quote, ‘real success’ in Afghanistan,” he said.
General Petraeus said that militants have targeted civilians in Pakistan often in the recent past, and even killed famous leaders like former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, which has unveiled their real motive.
Pakistanis have realised that the militants want to push the country back for their own gains, and now they are determined to fight the menace, he said.
“The people believed that the extremists wanted to turn the clock back several centuries instead of allowing Pakistan to move forward the way the bulk of the population wanted,” General Petraeus added.
He also pointed out that while President Barack Obama’s Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke’s jurisdiction did not include India, he had been consulting New Delhi over the regional issues regularly.
“I think, again, it’s not in the title, but he (Holbrooke) has certainly had a lot of activity with our Indian partners,” General Petraeus said. (ANI)
