Islamabad: The relationship between Islamabad and Washington is apparently heading towards a head-on collision after an American official blamed Friday’s deadly attack on an Afghan hotel on Pakistan’s FATA-based militants.
Some US media reports said that Washington had considered launching retaliatory attacks at terrorist targets inside FATA, but concerns about destabilising Pakistan prevented it from doing so.
A US official, however, said that the White House has vowed to take the steps needed to mitigate this threat.
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest pointed out that the US had raised the issue of terrorism with the Pakistanis and remained committed to finding ways to work with them to combat the threat that militant groups posed both to US forces and innocent Pakistani civilians, the Dawn reports.
The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan recently said that the deadly attack on the Kabul hotel bore the signature of the Haqqani group which he said continued to operate from Pakistan.
Commenting on the statement, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said that the US had been pushing Pakistan for a long time to ‘squeeze’ this terrorist outfit.
ANI
First Published: Saturday, June 23, 2012, 12:42