Taliban and Al-Qaeda breathing in Pakistan’s safe havens: Robert Gates

The US Defence Secretary has once again reiterated that they have compelling evidence leading them to be certain that the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda are surviving inside Pakistan, taking advantage of its ‘safe havens’. The US official asserted that the US is dead sure about these terroristic organisations using Pakistan’s tribal areas particularly north Waziristan to regroup, and that the US is trying to address this issue with Islamabad. Mr Gates told mediapersons at the Pentagon that: I would say the Taliban and Al-Qaida have been able to use the areas around particularly north Waziristan to regroup and it is a problem. We are working together with Pakistan to address that problem. Possibility of US troops moving into Pakistan When asked about whether the US would actually move into Pakistan and clear out its tribal areas that are infected by these militants, Mr Gates replied that if the Pakistani government is unsuccessful in handling the situation, somebody will have to, even if that means us. The unrest at the Pakistan-Afghanistan problem has been recieving wide international attention recently, especially by the US. It seems that the US is hell-bent on giving this issue its best shot. Solving the problem in Afghanistan seems to be on top of the US list at the moment. Whether that is because it wants to forget the failure in Iraq, or if it wants to secure a stronger hold over South Asia, we do not know. Via: The Times of India