US should do more in WOT

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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US should do more in eliminating terrorist sanctuaries in eastern Afghanistan. When the Americans can locate terrorists within Pakistan, why can’t they see them within
Afghanistan?
TTP admits to having safe haven in Afghanistan – The Express Tribune

TTP admits to having safe haven in Afghanistan

http://i1.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/399205-talibanrogue-1340681211-434-640x480.jpg

Spokesperson claims Maulana Fazlullah is commanding 1,000-plus diehard fighters. PHOTO: AFP/FILE

****ISLAMABAD: **The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – a banned conglomerate of dozens of militant outfits – has admitted for the first time that they are using the Afghan soil as a springboard for launching attacks on Pakistani security forces.

**
The acknowledgment gives credence to Islamabad’s claims that the TTP has found safe havens in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces bordering Pakistan.

Pakistani officials believe that the top TTP cadres – including Maulana Fazlullah, Maulvi Faqir and Waliur Rehman – and hundreds of their loyalists had fled a string of military offensives in Swat, and Bajaur and Mohmand agencies since 2008 to seek shelter in Afghanistan.

“Maulana Fazlullah is leading TTP attacks from Afghanistan’s border provinces and is in touch with fighters in Malakand division,” Sirajuddin, the spokesperson for TTP’s Malakand chapter, told The Express Tribune by phone from an undisclosed location. “We regularly move across the porous border,” he added.
He claimed that Fazlullah was commanding over a thousand diehard fighters.

Contrary to Pakistani claims, Sirajuddin, however, said that the TTP hierarchy and fighters fled to Afghanistan in recent months and now they are settled in the country’s border regions.

Until this month the administration of President Hamid Karzai was in denial about TTP’s bases in Afghanistan. However, Kabul has now conceded the presence of ‘some TTP militants’ in the border regions, according to a senior Pakistani official.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26[SUP]th[/SUP], 2012.

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Re: US should do more in WOT

This need to be brought up at higher levels but problem is we are so focused on 'restoring NATO supply' (hint: looking towards to grease our palms) that we don't reply tit-for-tat when US accuses Pakistan of providing safe havens to AlQ/Taliban who attack US/NATO in Afghanistan.

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Re: US should do more in WOT

if we dont speak up now, this bullying will never stop!

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just yesterday, these Zaaliman beheaded our soldiers, 13 soldiers will killed in cross border attacks!

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Re: US should do more in WOT

Of course America is doing more in WOT. It is asking, non stop, others to do more while it turns blind eye to terrorist safe havens in Afghanistan. Hypocrites.

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Re: US should do more in WOT

They are doing as much as they can. Trust me on that. American's die nearly every week around the world. They aren't half-assing it at all.

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Re: US should do more in WOT

Intelligence officials blamed the attack on followers of Maulvi Fazlullah, a cleric who fled to Afghanistan after the Pakistani army forced him out of the Swat Valley in a 2009 offensive.

He re-emerged as a threat last year, when his fighters conducted cross-border raids that killed around 100 Pakistani security forces.

Fazlullah Wahidi, the governor of Kunar province, said the assailants were based in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
**“We don’t have any information about militants crossing the border from Afghnaistan to attack troops in Pakistan,” **he told the Reuters news agency.
Pakistan wants Afghan and NATO forces to act against armed groups based in Afghanistan. The US has called on Pakistan to get its own house in order and target Pakistan-based fighters who cross the border in the other direction.
Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, said earlier this month that Washington was reaching the end of it patience over the matter.

Pakistan troops ‘beheaded’ near Afghan border - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English

This is just madness, its Pakistan who is running out of patience with US.

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The problem is that its useless complaining with Afghans as they don’t have any control in their Eastern parts.
US for increased Pak-Afghan cooperation against cross-border terrorism – The Express Tribune

ISLAMABAD / WASHINGTON: **Following Islamabad’s strong protest over killing of 13 Pakistani troops in cross-border militant attacks in Dir area, the United States on Tuesday urged increased cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan within the trilateral group involving NATO to deal with terrorist issues. **

The State Department acknowledged that there are frustrations on both sides of the border over militant activities and called for respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity in addressing cross-border terrorism.

“Our pitch will be again for increased cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan on these terrorists issues, working together in the core group in a trilateral way NATO/ISAF, Pakistan and Afghanistan to try to deal with terrorism on both sides of the border,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

“It speaks to why we want to get back on track in our own counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan,” she added.

**The spokesperson was responding to a question regarding Pakistan lodging a strong protest that the NATO and Afghan forces were not taking any action against the safe havens on the Afghan side, which the militants use for attacking Pakistani border areas.
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**Pakistani officials said about 100 militants from across the Afghan border entered Dir and clashed with Pakistani security forces on patrol duty. The militants also targeted two security check posts near the Pakistan-Afghan border in Barawal, Upper Dir district.
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**Asked if Washington would support Pakistani troops crossing over the Afghan border to attack militant safe havens, the spokesperson reiterated, “Again, both sides need to respect sovereignty, territorial integrity but they need to work together in how they are each going to deal with problems on their own side of the border. I think there are frustrations on both sides.”
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Closer Pak-US cooperation against al Qaeda needed: Munter

United States Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter said that he does not know where the current al Qaeda chief Aiman Al Zawahiri was and that the US seeks Pakistan’s help in finding him, adding that his arrest was beneficial for both countries.

Munter, while talking to a private channel, said that Pakistan and US should work together against Al Qaeda.

Speaking about the attack on Salala check post last year by Nato forces, the ambassador said that the US regrets the incident and is desirous of expanding ties with Pakistan in diverse fields, including expanding business and social sector ties.

Regarding resumption of Nato supply routes, he said that several issues with Pakistan have been settled, adding that both sides agreed that the issue was not handled properly and that there was a need for a political decision to end the deadlock.

Munter stressed that the restoration of NATO supplies to Afghanistan was in the interest of Pakistan.

Responding to a question regarding Raymond Davis, who had shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore in 2010, Munter said that an investigation into the incident was still underway.

The ambassador said the US was ready to talk with Taliban if the latter laid down their arms.

On a question regarding Indo-Pak ties, Munter said Pakistan was very sensitive on the issue of India.

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Re: US should do more in WOT

I think Americans should do much LESS, better for them and for the people around the world.

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Re: US should do more in WOT

Kayani urges Isaf commander to curb border incursions | DAWN.COM

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1d/Unclesamwantyou.jpg/220px-Unclesamwantyou.jpg

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they are clearly doing alot!**

WASHINGTON, June 26: The Pentagon sent thousands of US troops to the wrong province in Afghanistan and “squandered more than a year of the war”, claims a book released on Tuesday.

**The book — “Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan” — also shows how the White House national security staff blocked the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke from negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban.
After reading the revelations, Congressman Frank Wolf wrote a letter to President Barack Obama, urging him to remove retired Lt-Gen Douglas Lute from his post on the National Security Council for blocking Mr Holbrooke’s peace plans.
In February 2009, President Obama agreed to send 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and another 30,000 later the same year.
But more than 50 per cent of the initial 17,000 ended up in Helmand instead of the Taliban nerve-centre of Kandahar.
“Can someone tell me why the Marines were sent to Helmand?” Gen Stanley McChrystal, the then US commander in Afghanistan, reportedly asked upon his arrival in Kabul in June 2009.
**
US sent thousands of troops to wrong province: book | DAWN.COM
**

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Presence of Taliban sanctuaries in Afghanistan beyond explanation: Rehman – The Express Tribune

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Re: US should do more in WOT

On sanctuaries in Pakistan, **Ambassador stressed that Pakistan had no tolerance for militant groups and our actions in Swat, Bajaur, Mohmand Agency and South Waziristan proved it,” **said the press release.

The ambassador told the Senators that militants forced out of Pakistan have often found safe haven in Afghanistan. She added that in the past month, three major attacks have been launched from Afghanistan which have led to the death of 18 soldiers.

“The continued presence of these sanctuaries in Afghanistan in the face of US, NATO and Afghanistan’s combined military might is beyond explanation,” questioned Ambassador Rehman.

Well Said, Sherry Rehman!