No US ‘threat’ to Pak on new ‘terror timetable’: Haqqani
By ANIFriday, May 28, 2010
Washington, May 28 (ANI): A day after the Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) rubbished reports regarding top US officials handing over ‘dossiers’ to the country’s military and political leadership concerning the confessed Times Square bomber’s links with terror groups based South Waziristan, Islamabad’s Envoy to Washington Hussain Haqqani has also refuted reports about US pressuring Pakistan to launch new anti-terror operations.
When asked that whether President Obama’s National Security Advisor James Jones, who visited Pakistan last week along with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta, put any pressure on Pakistan to open a new front against the Taliban, Haqqani replied: “No, he did not.”
It is permanent to mention here that a report in the Los Angeles Times said that the US has given a blunt message to Pakistan that it would be under “inevitable pressure” to take immediate and stern action if a successful terror attack is traced back to that country.
The report cited officials privy to the recent meeting between Jones, Panetta and Pakistan’s political and military leadership, as saying that during the talks the top US officials told Islamabad in clear terms that it needed to intensify its crackdown in the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
“We have been lucky in the past, but our luck will run out and in the future, we are likely to face successful attacks,” the newspaper quoted a senior U.S. intelligence official, as saying.
According to officials, both Jones and Panetta had told both the Pakistani civilian and military leadership that there was ‘hard’ evidence to prove that Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomb plotter, received terror training by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the lawless tribal areas of the country along the Afghanistan border.
“The chart, which was assembled by U.S. intelligence agencies, showed who all he had contacts with, and drew clear links between Faisal Shahzad and the TTP leaders in Pakistan,” officials said.
Jones and Panetta did not spell out possible action the U.S. might take, however, the delegation did not rule out military action, said an official privy to the meeting.
According to experts and officials, US’ action would depend on the circumstances of an attack and the strength of the evidence implicating militants in Pakistan. (ANI)
