Pakistan to decide timing of NWA offensive: US Updated at: 0433 PST, Friday, May 21, 2010
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon expressed confidence on Thursday that Pakistan would mount an offensive in North Waziristan Agency (NWA), but said Islamabad would decide on the timing.
US President Barack Obama dispatched White House National Security Adviser Jim Jones and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Pakistan earlier this week to urge Islamabad to step up pressure on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan following a botched May 1 car-bombing in New York’s Times Square.
But US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking at a Pentagon press conference, said Washington’s focus was on seeing “how can we intensify our cooperation in dealing with this mutual threat” rather than on pushing for any “qualitative change” in Pakistan’s approach.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Kayani had “indicated” to him more than a year ago that he had “plans to execute that mission” in North Waziristan.
But Mullen said the timing was “really up to him (Kiyani)” and the US understood that the Pakistani military was already “stretched” by operations in other tribal areas.
“He’s got two fronts. He’s got a military that’s lost a lot of soldiers, sacrificed a great deal, and so that it makes a lot of sense to me that he does get to pick this timeline,” Mullen said. “When I have dealt with him in the past, what he has said he would do in the future, he’s always done.”
Gates estimated that Pakistan already had seven divisions and 140,000 troops in and around the tribal areas, calling it a “huge effort”.
US investigators believe accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, who was born in Pakistan and became a US citizen last year, received assistance from the TTP.
Gates said the TTP’s growing reach – from attacking the government to plotting a car-bombing in Times Square – showed that “we now have a mutual interest in trying to stop this group – stop it from carrying out attacks inside Pakistan, stop it from carrying out attacks outside of Pakistan, and especially in the United States”.
http://www.geo.tv/5-21-2010/65294.htm
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Assalam-o-alaikum.. Dear Sis mehwish.. Please compare my pasted story from nation & this from Geo news (jang press).. Any familiarity between WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION & IRAQ WAR.. 9/11 & AFGHANISTAN WAR... VIETNAM WAR...
I think there is always other part of the story as well, i cannot & wouldnot support Saddam killing in Iran or Kurdistan, but there was no legal or moral reason to attack iraq on false WMD (power point presentation showing containers fill with WMD) story..
My point is when in point blank program journalists are accepting that they are rcving calls from so called spokesman of TTP from same PCO phone..
Also our agencies are taping the conversation, why they have not arrested the person who is calling, Kashif abbasi, talat, naseem zehra & many more..
I think (i may be wrong) our armed forces dont have the power to stand against foreign pressure as we are on their payroll. Sorry to say that but this is truth, as i think. Only ALLAH knows better what is the truth... May ALLAH prove me wrong & make our armed forces & agencies to fight for islam, for muslims, for Pakistan & for Pakistanis.
Jaza-k-ALLAH for your point of view..
Regards