Robert Gates Has A Close Look At Pak Border
President Pervez Musharraf is again under pressure with top American defense/security officials alleging infiltration of Taliban radicals into Afghanistan from Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been repeatedly making the same accusations.
In a recent Senate hearing US National Intelligence Director (NID) John Negroponte was blunt: “Al Qaeda has found ‘a secure hideout in Pakistan, from which it is rebuilding its strength’.”
And today’s Associated Press report in The International Herald Tribune does not seem to offer much consolation to the Pakistan government: “Standing on a rocky dirt track, ringed by 6,000-foot (1,800-meter), snow-dappled ridges (in Afghanistan), U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates came almost eye-to-eye with the United States’ worry about losing years of costly gains against the radical Taliban movement.
“Gates looked east from this bleak U.S. outpost into a part of Pakistan just a few miles away that has become an infiltration route for a growing number of Taliban fighters. U.S. military officials say they have evidence the Pakistani military has turned a blind eye to the border incursions.
“Later, at a news conference, Gates acknowledged the border security problem and said something would have to be done about it. Only one month into his tenure at the Pentagon, Gates said he had not yet studied the issue in detail.
” ‘The border area is a problem,’ Gates told reporters Tuesday after meeting with President Hamid Karzai. ‘There are more attacks coming across the border, there are al-Qaida networks operating on the Pakistani side of the border. And these are issues that we clearly will have to pursue with the Pakistani government’.”
Well Mr Gates for your kind information the Indian government ‘has been pursuing’ with the Pakistan government the issue of al-Qaida and other terrorist network’s infiltration into Kashmir from the Pakistani side for the past decade, with no result. Wish you good luck, Mr Gates!!!
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5 Responses to “Robert Gates Has A Close Look At Pak Border”
Isn’t this the same border area (Wazaristan?) that was part of some recent Pakistan/Al Qaeda treaty which President Bush condoned?
Just checking?
Yes, it was.
Sorry, cut/pasted the wrong quote!
Hey, lookie – I’ve got my very own thread to play with!!
Waziristan has long been a Taliban stronghold, the government of Pakistan is there in name only. We can’t strike into Waziristan without endangering the Pakistani government, so we wait and hunt down what Taliban elements we can catch in Afghanistan. More troops could stabilize the border area but those are not available for obvious reasons. A lot of complaining going on in Afghanistan over the increased attacks and lack of security, esp. along the roads, by the time we figure out Iraq we might be too late for Afghanistan.
I got another border for them to worry about.