Post-Osama bin Laden, the US will push Pakistani army harder than ever to break relations with other militant leaders who American officials believe are hiding in Pakistan with the support of the military and intelligence service, a media report claimed today.
Post-Osama bin Laden, the US will push Pakistani army harder than ever to break relations with other militant leaders who American officials believe are hiding in Pakistan with the support of the military and intelligence service, a media report claimed today.
These leaders include Mullah Muhammad Omar, the spiritual head of the Afghan-Taliban; as also those from the allied militant network of Sirajuddin Haqqani; and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that the US holds responsible for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008, the New York Times reported quoting an unnamed senior American official as saying.
Emboldened by the May 2 raid that killed bin Laden in his Abbottabad hideout in Pakistan, American officials say they now have greater leverage to force Pakistan to cooperate in hunting down Taliban and Qaeda leaders so the United States can end the war in Afghanistan.
But the paper warned Pakistan's powerful army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani appears unlikely to respond to growing international demands for action to root out other militant groups.
Quoting a confidant of the general, it claimed that Kayani is likely to pursue a strategy of decreasing Pakistan's reliance on the US, and continuing to offer just enough cooperation to keep the billions of dollars in American aid flowing.
The Times said that since the raid on May 2, Pakistani officials were anxiously waiting to see if any new intelligence about al-Qaeda in Pakistan spills from the American raid that could be used to exert more pressure on them, and what form that pressure might take.
The daily said US the was demanding answers from Pakistan on how bin Laden was able to stay in the garrison city of Abbottabad.
But those who have spoken to Gen Kayani recently said that demands to break with top militant leaders were likely to be too much for the military chief, who is scheduled to address an unusual, closed-door joint session of Parliament today to salvage his reputation and explain the military's lapses surrounding the American raid, the report said.
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