U.S. Says Kabul Siege Militants Linked to Pakistan Government
The Pakistan-based Haqqani militant network was behind last week's Kabul siege and there is evidence linking the group to the Islamabad government, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan has said.
In blunt comments broadcast by state-run Radio Pakistan on Saturday, Ambassador Cameron Munter said: "Let me tell you that the attack that took place in Kabul a few days ago that was the work of the Haqqani network...
"There is evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistan government. This is something that must stop," Munter said.
The U.S. has long urged Pakistan to take action against the Haqqani network and suspected the group had support within the Islamabad administration.
But the public comments are a mark of strained ties between the fragile anti-terror allies, with relations fractious since the U.S. raid on Pakistani soil that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in May.
Asked to provide evidence of the link with the Pakistani government, Munter said only "we believe that to be the case".
Acknowledging that the past year had been "tough", he urged joint action against terrorism and said that the United States and Pakistan were "fundamentally on the same side".
The Haqqani network is thought to have been behind a number of attacks in Afghanistan, where NATO plans a gradual withdrawal of troops after a grueling ten-year war. Militants frequently cross the porous Afghan-Pakistani border.
Munter's remarks follow a warning by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who said after the Kabul attack -- in which rebels fired rockets at the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters, leaving 15 dead -- that the U.S. would retaliate against Pakistan-based insurgents.
"Time and again we've urged the Pakistanis to exercise their influence over these kinds of attacks from the Haqqanis and we've made very little progress in that area," Panetta said Wednesday, a day after the Kabul siege.
"I'm not going to talk about how we're going to respond. I'll just let you know that we're not going to allow these kinds of attacks to go on," he said.
Pakistan's foreign ministry condemned those remarks as "out of line", saying that "terrorism and militancy is a complex issue".
The 19-hour Taliban assault on Kabul turned the city's most heavily secured district into a battle zone, with six foreign troops wounded in the attack.
NATO's force in Afghanistan said Thursday it had captured two suspects over the siege, one of them a member of the Haqqani network and the other a Taliban militant who had also planned vehicle-bomb attacks.
Nearly 3,000 Pakistani troops have been killed fighting insurgents -- more soldiers than NATO forces have lost in Afghanistan -- but Islamabad has focused mainly on combatting the Pakistani Taliban.
Before the Kabul attack, the U.S. military blamed Haqqani militants for a truck bombing on September 10 against a NATO base in Wardak province, which wounded 77 American troops.
The network is closely allied to the Taliban. It was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani and is run by his son, Sirajuddin, both of them already designated "global terrorists" by Washington.
Source: Agence France Presse
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