Pak needs to do much more against Haqqani network for Afghan peace: Mullen

ISLAMABAD - US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen has praised Pakistan for moving against militants, but called for more action against the Haqqani network.

Admiral Mullen called the Haqqani group as “the most lethal network” faced by the US-led international force in Afghanistan.

Addressing the media at the US embassy in Islamabad, he said he had repeatedly urged Pakistan to tackle the threat.

“Haqqani network is strongly engaged and involved in insurgencies in Afghanistan and there is need to take much stronger position against it,” The News quoted Admiral Mullen, as saying.

The Haqqani network, led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin, is one of the three main factions of the Afghan Taliban, which operates on both sides of Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

The group is blamed for several daring attacks on coalition and Afghan forces, and is allied with both Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda.

Earlier, US Armed Services Committee Chairman, Senator Carl Levin, had urged Pakistan to crack down on the network.

Senator Levin believes that Pakistan’s reluctance to push into the North Waziristan area run by the Haqqanis is hurting the war efforts in Afghanistan.

“At the moment, the Haqqani network and their fighters coming over the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan is the greatest threat, at least external threat, to Afghanistan,” Levin had said. “More needs to be done by Pakistan. The Pakistanis have said they now realize, more than ever, that terrorism is a threat to them not just the terrorists who attack them directly, but the terrorists who attack others from their territory,” he added. (ANI)