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| World Home » Terrorism » | Fri. May 16, 2008 |
| Terrorism |
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Al-Qaida shifted its focus from US to Pakistan MIL/Agencies, Dec 22, 2007. Washington, USA: December 22, 2007 – According to US Intelligence sources the Al-Qaida militants into Afghanistan has shifted their focus from USA to Pakistan. Pakistan sources are of the opinion; that Al-Qaida militants seem to be concentrating more on Pakistan now, but gave no comments whether they have shifted their target from the USA. "The number of fighters coming across the border in RC-East is down about 40 per cent. Al-Qaida right now seems to have turned its face towards Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people," Defence Secretary Robert Gates said. "There is no question that Al-Qaida has re-established in some of the frontier area. But so far, we haven't seen any significant consequence of that in Afghanistan," he said. Noting that the Pakistani army has had some success in their counter-insurgency effort in Swat, Gates said the US has been "impressed" by new Pakistan army chief Parvez Kayani and that Washington would work closely with him. "We are impressed with this new chief and would begin a dialogue with him in terms of how we can help them do a better job in counterinsurgency through both training and equipment," he added. However, the Defence Secretary acknowledged that there has been an increase in violence in Afghan over the past year. "But in part it has been due to much more aggressive actions on the part of the NATO alliance and the US forces that are there. The spring offensive we expected from the Taliban became NATO's spring offensive," Gates said. "And here again I think that the challenge for 2008 will be to sustain the successes we've had, to hang on to places that we have cleared... and create the conditions in which further economic development can go forward," he added
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