Pakistan Rejects US Plans to Strike Terrorists on its Soil
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By Michael Bowman
Washington
06 January 2008
Pakistan says it will not permit the United States to unilaterally hunt terrorists on its soil, despite a common desire to defeat radical Islamist militants. VOA's Michael Bowman reports, the statements from Pakistani officials follow a U.S. media report that the Bush administration has considered expanding U.S. military and intelligence operations in Pakistan's tribal regions, thought to be a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden.
Pakistan's foreign ministry is downplaying the New York Times story as speculative, but military officials in Islamabad are far more blunt in rejecting possible U.S. activities within their country's borders.
A Pakistani army spokesman, Major General Waheed Arshad, says Pakistan has been clear on the issue, and no foreign forces will be allowed to operate inside Pakistan.
The New York Times is reporting that President Bush's top advisors have debated stepping up covert operations in Pakistan's northern tribal regions, where the country's central government exercises little control. The Times says the move was considered amid concerns that terrorist forces are intensifying efforts to destabilize Pakistan, a critical U.S. ally in the war on terror with a nuclear arsenal.
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| Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. Mahmud Ali Durrani (file photo) |
"We are totally focused on destroying al-Qaida and the Taleban network, and not just one person," said Mahmud Ali Durrani. "We are looking at the broader issue."
The ambassador added that neither Pakistan nor the United States knows precisely where terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden may be hiding, but if his whereabouts were known inside Pakistan, then Pakistani forces would have, in his words, "taken him out."
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So Obama has done nothing to turn the situation around,.....perhaps it is even worse now.....