Boiling Point: US senator calls for military action against Pakistan

Following Defence Secretary Leon Panetta’s warning to Islamabad that the U.S. will not allow attacks on U.S. forces from Pakistan-based insurgents like the Haqqani network to continue and US Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks to CNN that Pakistan had been an unreliable ally in the war on terror, the edgy relations between the two countries just seems to be getting worse – from allies to adversaries. Now, a Republican Congressman has said that the US should consider military action against Pakistan if it continues “engaging in hostile acts against the United States” and its ally Afghanistan."…If they continue to embrace terrorism as a part of their national strategy, we’re going to have to put all options on the table, including defending our troops," Lindsey Graham, US senator said. [caption id=“attachment_92324” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A file picture of Jalaluddin Haqqani (R), the Taliban’s Minister for Tribal Affairs and his son Naziruddin (L) from 2001. Reuters”] [/caption] In the aftermath of the mounting tensions between the US and Pakistan, Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani Sunday (yesterday) convened a special meeting of his top commanders to review the security situation. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has called an all party meeting on Oct 3 to discuss its relations with the US and has recalled Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar from the US amid growing tension between the two countries. “Any intelligence agency would like to maintain contacts with whatever opposition group, whatever terrorist organisation for some positive outcome,” Pakistan army spokesman Major Gen Athar Abbas, told Reuters. “If someone is blaming us as the only country maintaining contact with the Haqqanis there are others too,” he said. The US government has been pressuring Pakistan’s military-run ISI to severe its link with the local Taliban group, the Haqqani network, based along the Afghan border. Last Thursday, US Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of backing attacks that were carried out on its embassy in Afghanistan. This was the first time a US official had linked ISI directly to terror groups, signaling a significant change in the American approach to Islamabad. Watch a slideshow of US and Pakistan’s uneasy relationship: [fpgallery id=250] Pakistan reacted sharply to Mullen’s accusations saying the US risks losing it as an ally, if it continued to accuse Islamabad of playing a double game. “You cannot afford to alienate Pakistan, you cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani people,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said, adding, “If you are choosing to do so and if they are choosing to do so, it will be at their own cost.” Undettered, the White House Friday reiterated its call for Pakistan to cut its ties to the Haqqani network and shut down safe havens on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier. “It is critical that the government of Pakistan break any links they have and take strong and immediate action against this network so that they are no longer a threat to the US or to the people of Pakistan, because this network is a threat to both,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Mullen’s finger pointing at Pakistan follows the Pentagon’s recent statement which said it believed Al Qaeda’s new chief Ayman al-Zawahiri is still hiding in Pakistan . “We have no information to indicate that he is anywhere else than in Pakistan,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said about the 60-year-old Egyptian physician-turned-militant leader who succeeded Osama bin Laden. Even as calls from the US for action against the Haqqani network gets louder, Gilani said that Pakistan had “sacrificed much in battling the menace of terrorism” and the country should not be “pressurised to do more.” He also indicated that Pakistan would not allow any aggression The “people stood with their armed forces, which are fully capable to defend the frontiers of the country”, he said. Frustrated by its duplicity, the US has recently been turning up the heat against Pakistan , to crack down on terror networks. It says the Haqqani network – accused of the blasts at its Kabul embassy – has safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal belt near the Afghan border. Pak-US relations hit a new low after the US raid that killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad in May. Watch video of Lindsey Graham, US Senator calling for military action against Pakistan:

Boiling Point: US senator calls for military action against Pakistan

US senator Lindsey Graham has said that America should consider military action against Pakistan if it continues to embrace terrorism as a part of their national strategy.

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