News
Monday, May 23, 2011
Obama vows unilateral raids inside Pakistan
* US president says Washington cannot allow ‘active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action’
LONDON/ISLAMABAD: US President Barack Obama stands ready to order a similar mission to that which killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, he said in a BBC interview broadcast on Sunday.
Asked whether he would do the same again if another high-value target was discovered in Pakistan, or any other sovereign territory, Obama replied: the US would take unilateral action if required.
“I’ve always been clear to the Pakistanis – and I’m not the first administration to say this- that our job is to secure the United States.
Asked what he would do if one of al Qaeda’s top leaders, or the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, was tracked down to a location in Pakistan or another sovereign territory, he said, “We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan, but we cannot allow someone who is actively planning to kill our people or our allies’ people, we can’t allow those kinds of active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action.”
Obama conceded that the Abbottabad raid was a calculated risk – and insisted he would seek closer cooperation with Islamabad, which was given no advance notice of the operation.
He said, “We’ve killed more terrorists on Pakistani soil than anywhere else, and that could not have been done without their cooperation.
“But there’s more work to do. And my expectation is that over the coming months, this can be a wake-up call where we start seeing a more effective cooperative relationship.”
On Afghanistan, Mr Obama said that while the conflict could not be solved militarily, raising troop levels had put the Taliban “back on its heels” in a way that could facilitate the brokering of a political reconciliation.
Replying to Obama’s statement, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua said that the US had assured Pakistan that incidents like Abbottabad operation would not be repeated without bringing the matter to the notice of Islamabad. agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk