« India, Pakistan, Iran likely to hold talks over pipeline proj | Home | Asia Cup: Pakistan names uncapped spinner in 15-member squad »

Rice Calls for Afghanistan-Pakistan Cooperation Against Taliban

By admin | June 23, 2008

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan against the Taliban, saying President Hamid Karzai’s threat to pursue militants into Pakistani territory was “not wise.”

“There are Taliban operating in Afghanistan who have to be defeated. And there are Taliban who are operating in Pakistan, and they have to be defeated,” Rice said in an interview with CNN aired yesterday. “It’s probably better that the respective governments deal with their own problems.”

Karzai last week threatened to deploy troops on Pakistani soil to pursue militants in response to attacks in Afghanistan. The Foreign Ministry in Islamabad dismissed the comments, adding that Pakistan would “defend its territorial sovereignty.”

Ties between the neighbors are tense as they blame each other for failing to stop al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters crossing the 2,430-kilometer (1,510-mile) border.

Pakistan earlier this month denounced as “senseless” an air strike by Afghanistan-based U.S. forces, saying it destroyed a border post and killed 11 Pakistani soldiers. The Pentagon said it targeted militants and that no structure was hit.

NATO-led forces in southern Afghanistan fired on militants inside Pakistan at the weekend after being attacked by rockets.

Militants hit Kundai village in Khowst province with a rocket, killing three civilians, and another struck a NATO International Security Assistance Force base, the alliance said yesterday. NATO notified the Pakistani military when its base came under attack and fired artillery rounds at the rocket launch site located 300 meters (985 feet) inside Pakistan.

Karzai’s Call

Afghanistan has the right to send soldiers across the border to tackle militants who “come and kill Afghan and coalition troops,” Karzai said June 15. Afghan forces will attack Pakistani-Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, Karzai said. “We will go after him now and hit him in his house.”

Mehsud commands as many as 5,000 fighters and formed an alliance of about five pro-Taliban groups in December, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, according to the U.S. military academy’s Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. He is Pakistan’s most prominent Taliban leader, blamed for staging attacks on NATO forces and planning the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan and Afghanistan had to work together to defeat the Taliban, Rice said. Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf and Karzai set up of a 50-member group, or jirga, of tribal elders from both countries last year to take steps to end sanctuaries and terrorist training bases in the border areas.

Cooperation can happen “in terms of intelligence sharing, in terms of political activity like the jirga,” Rice told CNN. “I think it’s probably not wise to talk about Afghan cross- border operations,” she added.

Pakistan, which the U.S. considers a key ally, joined the war on terrorism in 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks and ended its support for Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime, which sheltered al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Topics: Top Stories |