US may lose Pakistan as key ally: FM Khar

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON: Pakistan warned the United States it risks losing an ally if it continued to accuse Islamabad of playing a double game in the war against militancy, escalating the crisis in relations between the two countries.   

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was responding to comments by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who said Pakistan’s top spy agency was closely tied to the Haqqani network.

“You will lose an ally,” Khar said while talking to a Pakistan-based news channel in New York in remarks broadcast on Friday.

“You cannot afford to alienate Pakistan, you cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani people. If you are choosing to do so and if they are choosing to do so it will be at their (the United States’) own cost.”

Mullen, speaking in Senate testimony, alleged Haqqani operatives launched an attack last week on the U.S. embassy in Kabul with the support of Pakistan’s military intelligence.

“The message for America is: ‘They can’t live with us, they can’t live without us,” Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters.

“Anything which is said about an ally, about a partner, publicly to recriminate it, to humiliate it, is not acceptable,” said Khar.

The United States has long pressed Pakistan to go after the Haqqani network, which it believes operates from sanctuaries in North Waziristan on the Afghan border.

Pakistan says its army is too stretched fighting its own Taliban insurgency.

The Haqqani network, Mullen said, is a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

Mullen, CIA director David Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all have met with their Pakistani counterparts in recent days to demand Islamabad take action against the Haqqani network.

Any Pakistani offensive against the Haqqanis would be risky. The group has an estimated 10,000-15,000 seasoned fighters at its disposal and analysts say the Pakistani army would likely suffer heavy casualties.

Mahmud Durrani, a retired major general and former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, said both sides should ease tensions to avoid American military action beyond drone strikes or economic sanctions.

“There’s a possibility. It’s wide open. But it will be absolutely, totally disastrous.” AGENCIES

Russia to supply nuclear submarine to India-RIA

MOSCOW: Russia will deliver a nuclear submarine to India by the end of the year, Russia’s navy chief was quoted as saying on Friday by state news agency RIA.

Pakistan is Centre of Terrorism Activites: Mullen

Breaking News: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen has said that Pakistan is centre of terrorism activities and proper action is vital to end terrorists places from the country.

The top US military officer says coalition forces are continuing to make significant progress against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but is warning there is likely to be more violence this year in many parts of the country than in 2010.

Mullen says local towns are beginning to reject Taliban fighters and the insurgents are losing ground. He is losing and I have every confidence that he will continue to lose so long as coalition and Afghan forces increase their presence and their pressure on his operations and improve their own capacity, he said.

The admiral says he was not surprised that China tested the countrys first radar-evading stealth bomber this week, but says he cannot understand why Beijing continues to invest in expensive weapons that could be targeted against America.

Wikileaks: Nawaz, Zardari dispute setted by Miliband

Sensational revelations of Wikileaks are continued. According to recent leaks by the website Richard Holbrooke said that former British foreign minister David Miliband played an important role in resolving the dispute between Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari. Common masses are fed up of corrupt politicians more than hating Taliban. David Cameron, according to leaks, said that due to wrong entry policies of the UK, terrorism has increased in Pakistanis residing in the UK.

Richard Holbrooke and David Cameron discussed issue related with Pakistan during the meeting of 3rd April, 2009. Holbrooke said that the UK should pay more attention to Pakistan and that pressure on Pakistan could be increased on account of a large number of Pakistanis present in the UK while David Miliband played a vital role in resolving dispute between Zardari and Nazwaz Sharif. The UK should also play its part in combating corruption in Pakistan because common masses in Pakistan dislike corrupt politicians more than disliking Taliban. The purpose of the visit of Admiral Michael Mullen was to establish the atmosphere of confidence between Pakistan and India.

The leaks have also disclosed that the British PM David Cameron said that the UK supports the US policies. 1 million Pakistani students residing in the UK are not supporters of Taliban but some of them possess soft corners for extremists due to Afghan and Iraq wars and it has happened due to wrong policies of the UK. Cameron further said that similar policies would be formulated against extremists and violent Muslim groups.

PM Gilani meets forces’ chiefs, Senate Chairman to greet Eid

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met to the chiefs of the armed forces and the Chairman of Senate to greet Eid in Islamabad.

After performing Eid prayers, the Chairman of Senate Farooq H. Naik, the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Khalid Shamim Wyne, the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the acting Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt and the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir called on the Prime Minister separately, in the PM House, and expressed Eid greetings.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani performed Eid prayer with the staff in PM House, Islamabad. Trend Pk

Pakistan celebrates 133rd birthday of Allama Iqbal

Staff Report

LAHORE: Pakistan is celebrating the 133rd birthday of Allama Iqbal today (Monday). The Poet of the East was born in Sialkot on Novemebr 9, 1877. The nation will pay special tribute to the fore-dreamer of a separate country for Muslims of the sub-continent.

The day started with a guard changing ceremony at the mausoleum of Allama Iqbal in Lahore. A vigilant Pakistan Navy squad took over guard duty from a troop of rangers.

Rear Admiral Bashir Ahmad was the chief guest on the occasion. He laid a wreath of flowers on the grave of the great leader of the pre-Pakistan independence movement of Muslims.

All day long, people belonging to different walks of life will continue to visit the mausoleum of Allama Iqbal to pay tribute and offer Fateha to the great scholar of the sub-continent.

The Government of Pakistan has announced a public

Gates apologizes on NATO attack

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also apologized from Pakistan on NATO attack on Pakistani areas, after apologies from the NATO and US envoys.
Robert Gates expressed his apology in a meeting with the Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kiyani in the presence of the US Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee Admiral Michael Mullin. Pak-Afghan border issues and support in war against terrorism were also discussed in the meeting. United States said that Pakistans biggest enemy is extremism and not India.
Third round of Pak-US Strategic dialogue would commence from today in Washington. According to American television channel US would offer a security package to Pakistan worth $2 billion.

Pakistan plans to target Qaeda ‘epicenter’ in NW: Mullen

President Barack Obama’s top military adviser Mike Mullen said that Pakistan’s Army has pledged to go after militants the US wants targeted in an area harboring al- Qaeda that has become the epicenter of terrorism.
Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said his Pakistani counterpart, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has given assurances he will mount an offensive the U.S. has long called for in North Waziristan along the Afghan border.Muller cited as evidence for his optimism Pakistan’s offensives against the Taliban and related groups elsewhere in the country during the past 1 years. He’s committed to me to go into North Waziristan and to root out these terrorists as well, Mullen, 64, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s Conversations with Judy Woodruff to be broadcast this weekend. He clearly knows what our priorities are.In an interview that also touched on Iran, China and the burdens facing returning war veterans, Mullen said he hadn’t read Washington journalist Bob Woodward’s latest book on the administration’s strategy debates, Obama’s Wars.He countered suggestions in the book that the military limited Obama’s options on Afghanistan during a strategy review last year. The military provided its best advice, Mullen said. He said the goal was to defeat al-Qaeda and ensure Afghanistan wouldn’t again become a haven for the group as it had been before the US ousted the Taliban from power after the Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks. That’s how I approached my best military advice to the president, Mullen said.
In addition to the military campaign in Afghanistan, Obama is relying on neighboring Pakistan to help rout al-Qaeda and related groups that threaten troops across the border and may be preparing further attacks in Europe or the US, such as the May 1 car-bomb attempt in New York’s Times Square. Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation struggling with an economic crisis and newly re-established democratic rule, says its army is stretched by the fight against militants in six tribal agencies and a flood that inundated a fifth of the country in July. North Waziristan is the epicenter of terrorism, Mullen said. It’s where al-Qaeda lives.Pakistan has shifted more than 70,000 troops from the country’s border with India, its traditional rival, to the northwest, mobilizing a total of 140,000 forces.

Mullen regrets deaths of Pakistani soldiers

The top US military official conveyed his most sincere condolences to Pakistan’s army chief Thursday, over a fatal cross-border NATO strike that strained relations between the countries.
We we take this incident very seriously, Admiral Mike Mullen said in a letter to Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, the US embassy said.
I wanted to send my most sincere condolences for the regrettable loss of your soldiers killed and wounded on 30 September near your border with Afghanistan.
Mullen said senior commanders would review an investigation into the incident thoroughly in the hope of avoiding recurrence of a tragedy like this.
The death of our soldiers in combat is always tragic, but under these circumstances, it is even more difficult to accept, he said.
The letter was made public a day after US ambassador Anne W. Patterson issued an apology for the incident last Thursday in which a cross-border NATO chopper strike killed at least two Pakistani soldiers mistaken for militants.
Pakistan, a key US ally in the battle against militants in the region, shut the main land route at Torkham following the intrusion into its territory.

Petraeus phones Kayani, regrets NATO strikes

Staff Report

RAWALPINDI: Top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan David Petraeus called Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani today, and regretted the NATO strike that killed three Pakistani troops.

Three soldiers were killed in an early morning raid on Thursday when a NATO chopper fired at a Pakistani military post 200 metres inside the border in Kurram Agency.

According to details, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) commander assured the COAS that such an incident would not take place again. He conveyed his sincere feelings over the incident.

He said that it was a sad thing that the incident took place under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) command, the channel reported

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, also spoke with Gen. Kayani earlier.

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