Islamabad : Pakistan has responded swiftly on the allegations of Washington by saying that United States should focus on defeating Muslim militant enemies inside Afghanistan instead of blaming Pakistan for its failure, Pakistani officials said on Monday.
United States accused Pakistan on Saturday of having links to the Haqqani network, which is suspected for an attack on the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Kabul, and said the government in Islamabad must cut those ties.
A senior military official, who requested anonymity, told Reuters that “Whenever big attacks in Kabul or elsewhere in Afghanistan take place this blame game starts, Instead of blaming us, they should take action against terrorists on their side of the border.”
Pakistan says its forces are taking high casualties fighting insurgents and bristles at any suggestion it provides support for fighters.
Some 5,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed since the country joined the U.S. “war on terror” after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
The Haqqani network is one of three, and perhaps the most feared, of the Taliban-allied insurgent factions fighting U.S.-led NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.
Insurgents in a bomb-laden truck occupied a building in Kabul last week, raining rockets and gunfire on the U.S. Embassy and other targets in the diplomatic quarter of the Afghan capital, and battled police during a 20 hour siege.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Pakistan last week the United States would “do everything we can” to defend U.S. forces from Pakistan-based militants staging attacks in Afghanistan.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Pakistan in 3-1/2 hours of talks on Sunday to attack the Haqqani network, a senior U.S. official said.
“They (the Americans) say militants come from Pakistan but they travel up to Kabul and no one arrests them all the way to Kabul. It is their responsibility (to arrest them there) not ours,” said the senior Pakistani military official.
