News
Thursday, June 30, 2011
‘US operations have crippled Qaeda’
* Obama vows to keep pressure on Qaeda
* US is successful in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON: United States President Barack Obama, on Wednesday, vowed to keep pressure on the al Qaeda terror group following the death of Osama bin Laden in last month’s US raid in Pakistan.
US military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan had served to “severely cripple al Qaeda’s capacities,” Obama said at a White House press conference.
“The US is being successful in its mission in Afghanistan. The tide of war is receding. We have shifted to a transition phase,” he said.
“Osama bin Laden got the most attention, but before that we decimated some of the upper ranks of al Qaeda,” added the president.
The terror group was “having a great deal of difficulty operating and financing themselves. We’ll keep the pressure on,” Obama said.
“Kabul is much safer than it was, and Afghan forces in Kabul are much more capable than they were.” “That does not mean there will not be events like this taking place. That will go on for some time. Our work is not done.”
He stressed that it was in the US national interest “to make sure that you did not have a collapse of Afghanistan in which extremists elements could flood the zone once again, and over time al Qaeda may inbound a position to rebuild itself.”
US military forces will be withdrawn from Afghanistan “in a responsible way that will allow Afghanistan to defend itself and will give us the operational capacity to continue to put pressure on al Qaeda,” he said.
Last week, Obama announced plans for the 33,000 surge forces he sent to Afghanistan to leave country by the end of next summer. agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk