By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : A top Pentagon official flew to Pakistan to discuss security issues as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Islamabad has only recently realised that terrorists on its border with Afghanistan pose a significant threat.
The chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen is slated to meet Pakistani military officials as well as US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson during his visit, said Army Maj Gen. Richard Sherlock, the joint staff’s director of operational planning.
Mullen’s mission in Pakistan will be “to build on relationships with his counterparts and to gain a better understanding of Pakistan’s security challenges, which ultimately improve our vital cooperative efforts in fighting terrorists that threaten the stability of both Pakistan and Afghanistan”, Sherlock said.
Pakistan is a key US ally in the war against global terrorism and the two countries have maintained a “wide variety” of discussions, he said
The general noted that the US has a senior defence representative in Pakistan. “We have a constant dialogue and work with their military and with their government officials every day to share information (and) to offer our assistance where necessary,” Sherlock said.
Pakistan has yet to request US military help, Sherlock said. However, he added, US special operations forces could help Pakistan develop military capacities to confront insurgents operating in the country’s northwest region bordering Afghanistan.
“At this point, our goal is to look at Pakistan to help them grow in capacity and to assist where they would request us to assist,” Sherlock said.
Mullen’s departure for Pakistan comes shortly after Gates said: “It’s only been in the last few months, in my opinion, that Pakistan has come to realise that the situation along the border with Afghanistan … potentially represents a serious threat to the state of Pakistan itself.”
Gates made the comment at a news conference in Ilnius, Lithuania, where he is participating in informal NATO defence ministerial meetings on Afghanistan, according to the US defence department.
“Al Qaeda and some of the other insurgent groups have threatened to kill the leadership of Pakistan, they’ve threatened to destabilise the government,” he said. “They are almost certainly responsible for the assassination of (former Prime Minister) Benazir Bhutto.”
Gates said that in the past the Pakistanis looked at the border unrest as a nuisance. “My hope is that we will see the Pakistanis take a more aggressive stand out there.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday asked Pentagon to analyse the effectiveness of US-funded Pakistani military operations against reported Taliban, Al Qaeda and other-insurgent activity along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Gates and Mullen were among several Pentagon senior officials who testified at Wednesday’s Senate hearing. Gates told legislators that US military assistance has supported about 90 Pakistani army operations involving about 100,000 troops against insurgents operating in northwest Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas.
Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said at a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday: “The dialogue we are engaged in now is, how do we help them (Pakistan) help themselves?”
CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said more than 1,300 Pakistanis – civilians and troops – were killed in terrorist attacks and armed clashes in 2007, more than in the six previous years combined.
“Pakistanis have generally viewed (Al Qaeda) to be more a threat externally, to us, for example, than it is to them. They no longer see that. What we have is a nexus of Al Qaeda and Pashtun separatists and extremists,” Hayden said. “This is a threat to the identity and stability of the Pakistani state. That’s new.”