What happens in Pak will affect Afghanistan more than US troops.
Defense secretary Robert Gates on Thursday singled out the grave threat posed to stability in South Asia by al Qaeda leaders having a free run in Pakistan, while opening a second day of contentious hearings on president Barack Obama’s new Afghan strategy aimed at tackling the Taliban.
Gates told a hearing that al Qaeda was providing operational support to groups seeking to destabilise Pakistan, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
“Apart from the Taliban, we know that al Qaeda is helping the LeT, the terrorist group that carried out the bombings in Mumbai,” Gates told the House Armed Services Committee.
Gates told a Senate panel on Thursday that al Qaeda was providing the LeT with information to help the group plot attacks in India.
“Al Qaeda is supportive of the Lashkar. Al Qaeda is providing them with targeting information and helping them in their plotting in India, clearly with the idea of provoking a conflict between India and Pakistan that would destabilise Pakistan,” Gates told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He described the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan as “more dangerous” than a year ago and said al Qaeda provided Islamic jihadist groups technical information, operational information and support.
“They are supporting all of these different groups in ways that are destabilising not just for Afghanistan but for the entire region. Al Qaeda is at the heart of it. And whether or not the terrorists are homegrown, when we trace their roots, they almost all end up back in this border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan, whether they’re from the United States or Somalia or the United Kingdom or elsewhere,” Gates said.
The defense secretary’s comments will be music to India’s ears as New Delhi is very concerned that terrorism emerging from Pakistan be accorded the same priority in US interests as terrorism pertaining to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Obama and prime minister Manmohan Singh recently shared concerns about Pakistan being the epicenter of terrorism.
While announcing plans to send 30,000 US soldiers to Afghanistan, Obama has been vague about what specific steps are being taken to get Pakistan to root out al Qaeda’s leadership, as well as the Afghan Taliban, long suspected of having links with elements of Pakistan’s notorious spy agency. US administration officials said Obama is not talking publicly about his Pakistan strategy because of sensitivities in Islamabad, where the leaders are wary of being cast as US puppets.
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