Make aid to Pakistan conditional: lawmaker to US government

Washington: An influential American lawmaker has asked the Obama administration to make the US aid to Pakistan a conditional practice to be determined by the country's efforts to crack down on terrorist organisations.

Congressman Brad Sherman, a former Chairman of House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, said this in a joint letter to US Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

All of them met General Raheel Sharif, the Pakistan Army Chief who visited Washington this week.

"I urge you to indicate that continued American military aid to Pakistan is dependent upon good faith efforts by Pakistan to crack down on terrorist organisations," Sherman said in the letter dated November 17, a copy of which was obtained by PTI.

"Attack on Mumbai was supported by LeT, Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency. The planning for this took several years," Sherman said in Los Angeles at the inauguration of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.

In the brief letter, Sherman attached a recent article written by Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst, in which he said the Paris terrorist attack was modelled after the Mumbai terrorist attack by Lashkar-e-Taiba with the support of the Pakistani Army and its intelligence agencies.

"Lashkar-e Taiba paid no penalty for its attack, nor did its Pakistani patrons. The group's senior leadership operates freely in Pakistan and enjoys the support and protection of the Pakistani Army," wrote Riedel, currently director of The Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institute.

"LET is more dangerous today than ever. The world needs to do much better countering the Islamic State and its leadership," Riedel added.

"Mumbai has been studied by both terrorists and counter-terrorists because it set a gold standard for how a small group of suicidal fanatics can paralyse a major city, attract global attention, and terrorise a continent," he noted.

Riedel said the Paris and Mumbai attacks both used small, well-armed bands of terrorists striking simultaneously and sequentially against multiple soft targets in an urban area.

The Paris attackers added suicide vests to increase the carnage. In Mumbai, all but one fought to the death as ordered by the plot's masterminds, he said.

On Thursday the Pentagon urged Pakistan to combat all militants including the Haqqani network.