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Pakistan helping in NYC probe: US
WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday urged top Pakistani officials on Thursday to push ahead in their investigation of a Pakistan-born American accused of trying to set off a car bomb in New York's Times Square, a senior U.S. official said.The Pentagon said it was encouraged by Pakistani promises of cooperation on getting to the bottom of the attempted car bombing. The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Pakistan, is in custody in the United States.
U.S. officials say Shahzad has been cooperating with investigators but they want Pakistani authorities to pursue his possible links to the Taliban in Pakistan.
U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson telephoned Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Thursday to discuss the matter, the State Department said but declined to describe the discussions in detail.
The main point appeared to be ensuring there is a political commitment on the part of Pakistani officials to see the investigation through, said a senior State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"What we are doing right now is communicating to Pakistan that this is important and that we would expect them to take very specific actions as the investigation proceeds," the official said.
"The political commitment by various officials is very important," the official added, suggesting the United States was not yet making specific requests of Pakistan but would in the future.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Thursday that Pakistan was was ready to give full support to bring the culprits to justice.
The Defense Department said it was encouraged by Pakistani promises of cooperation and that Washington was letting Islamabad set the pace of its operations against militants.
"The U.S. and Pakistan are exchanging information and we've received a pledge of cooperation from the Pakistanis regarding this issue -- the investigation that is," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. "We're encouraged by this."
Washington had long pressed Pakistan to publicly take on al Qaeda and Taliban militants more aggressively but has expressed satisfaction with recent offensives near the country's border with Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are locked in an 8-year-old war.
U.S. investigators have uncovered possible links between the suspected Times Square bomber and the Pakistani Taliban, a group that has been heavily targeted by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas.
"There are safe havens that have yet to be fully targeted, as aggressively targeted ... but the pace and timing and the schedule to undertake those operations is of the Pakistanis' choosing," Morrell said at a Pentagon news conference.
He said Pakistan was reluctant to "overstretch their forces, to go places that they haven't been necessarily and, in the process, sacrifice gains that they've hard won elsewhere."
A Pentagon report issued last week estimated that Pakistan has shifted 100,000 of its troops from its Indian frontier to spearhead an unprecedented crackdown on militants along the Afghan border.
U.S. officials said about 140,000 Pakistani troops were taking part in offensives against militants in areas near Afghanistan.
Courtesy www.Geo.tv