Pakistan angered by Afghan allegations on Rabbani

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan urged Afghanistan on Thursday to act responsibly after Kabul accused Islamabad of masterminding the killing of the chief Afghan peace envoy.

Pakistan angrily rejected allegations that its spy agency was behind the September 20 killing of Burhanuddin Rabbani by a suicide bomber who hid explosives in his turban and posed as a Taliban representative with a message of reconciliation.

"It is our expectation that everyone, especially those in position of authority in Afghanistan, will demonstrate requisite maturity and responsibility," Foreign Office spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua told a news conference.

"This is no time for point-scoring, playing politics or grandstanding."

Pakistan has been on the defensive since the top U.S. military official accused its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency of supporting a September 13 attack by the Taliban-allied Haqqani militant group on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

Afghans have long been suspicious of Pakistan's intentions in their country and question its promise to help bring peace.

Senior Afghan officials have accused the ISI of masterminding the assassination of Rabbani, a former Afghan president.

President Hamid Karzai has said there was a Pakistani link to the killing and investigators he appointed believe the assassin was Pakistani and the suicide bombing was plotted in Pakistan.

On Wednesday, Afghanistan's intelligence agency said it had thwarted a plot to assassinate Karzai after arresting a bodyguard and five people with links to the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.

The plotters, who included university students and a medical professor, had been trained to launch attacks in Kabul and had recruited one of Karzai's bodyguards to kill the president, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) said.

Pakistan is looking increasingly isolated since Karzai signed a wide-ranging agreement with its rival India this week.

The pact signals a formal tightening of links that may spark Pakistani concern that India is increasingly competing for leverage in Afghanistan.

Pakistan wants wide say in any peace settlement in Afghanistan. Analysts say Pakistan maintains ties with Afghan militants in a bid to counter India's growing influence there. Pakistan denies this.

Janjua did not express any alarm over Karzai's pact with India, but she suggested it could create more regional instability.

"The most important thing that we would like to underscore is that within the context of any relationship, the fundamental principle of ensuring stability in the region must be taken into full account," she said.

Pakistan has long feared a hostile India over its eastern border and a pro-India Afghanistan on its western border.

(Reporting by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Michael Georgy and Robert Birsel)

Where Steve Jobs Ranks Among the Greats

He was indisputably a titan of the digital era. But how does Steve Jobs stack up against the greatest business leaders in American history?

We won't really know for years, of course, since nobody's sure where technology will lead or what his company, Apple, may still achieve. But Steve Jobs was clearly a visionary who changed much about the way people use technology. His death from pancreatic cancer at just 56 feels like a national loss. And he's one of the few people in any field who can plausibly be compared with America's greatest innovators. So it doesn't seem too early to try.

[See what we can all learn from Steve Jobs.]

Here's my methodology: Instead of measuring the amount of wealth created, I'm more interested in the impact that innovators have had on life in America, on how they improved living standards, advanced the nation's competitiveness and created opportunity for others. By that measure, Steve Jobs, for all his accomplishments, is up against a pantheon of epic overachievers.

Back in the 1700s, Benjamin Franklin, the quintessential American, helped form the ethos of the middle class--which he called "the middling people, the farmers, shopkeepers and tradesmen"--while serving as the conscience of the upstart nation through his publications, crafty diplomacy and deft political touch. Alexander Hamilton--who like Jobs, died young, at the age of 49--helped create the financial system that turned the United States from a banana republic into a stable nation global investors would be comfortable doing business with.

During the Industrial Revolution, pioneers like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie helped the United States become one of the world's mightiest economies--one that overtook Europe in the production of vital new materials like oil and steel. By the late 1800s, Thomas Edison developed an electric-lighting system that literally turned darkness to light and ushered in sweeping second- and third-order changes, from the improvement of working conditions in factories everywhere to safer homes no longer lit by candles. Edison also found time to invent the phonograph, the movie projector, and many other things, including a key modification to Alexander Graham Bell's telephone that remained part of the basic design until the 1980s.

[See why the era of free stuff is ending.]

In the 20th century, Henry Ford brought the gilded luxury of personal transportation to virtually everybody with his mass-produced cars, an innovation that shifted whole population centers from city to suburb. The Wright Brothers invented airplanes that would eventually move people from city to city--then from continent to continent--in hours, an order-of-magnitude change in the timeliness with which business could be conducted. Walt Disney invented new forms of entertainment for increasingly prosperous people with the newfound luxury of leisure time. Sam Walton, who founded Wal-Mart, brought everyday low prices to millions of shoppers. Ted Turner, who started CNN, broadcast his splashy cable news all day long, breaking the networks' monopoly on news and spawning an on-air information revolution.

When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1976, they set to work building a line of computers--culminating in the Macintosh--that would be the most intuitive machines of their kind. In a way, they introduced the middling people to the magic of digital processors the way Henry Ford introduced them to cars. The brash young Jobs left Apple in 1985, after a spat with the board over the company's direction. By his own later admission, he needed a strong dose of perspective.

[See why Netflix is smarter than its customers.]

Jobs did other things for 12 years, until returning to Apple as CEO in 1997. The company was floundering, after a string of misfires. Jobs straightened things out, then brought Apple to new heights with wonders like the iPod, iPhone and iPad, along with services like iTunes and Apple TV meant to complement the elegant devices. By the time Jobs retired as CEO earlier this year, Apple was more valuable than virtually any other technology company in the world, including Google, IBM and Microsoft.

Jobs's death has touched Apple customers, and many others, in a heartfelt way that's unusual for a business leader--especially today. Encomiums have flowed from practically everybody with a blog or Twitter account. "He was our Thomas Edison and our Henry Ford, all in one brief life," wrote political commentator David Frum in his Twitter feed, summarizing the thoughts of many.

But was he? Edison and Ford devised innovations so profound they transformed whole societies and materially improved the lives of people who never even purchased a Ford or Edison product. Edison lit public places, while also providing electricity that helped heat them and power other machines. The automobiles that rolled off Ford's assembly lines swept putrid piles of horse manure off of urban streets and made cities more liveable. Edison and Ford, like other historical giants, created progress that could be measured every day in the humblest of homes, while also laying the foundation for entirely new industries.

[See 4 lessons from the demise of Border's.]

If you're an Apple customer, chances are you feel that Steve Jobs has done something similar for you. Apple products are famous for their user-friendliness and their ability to enhance productivity, whether through third-party apps or ingenious features like the iMovie software that lets amateurs create videos with a professional look and feel. Perhaps more than anything, Apple customers simply enjoy using their products, which takes the drudgery out of scanning spreadsheets or speed-reading emails. Nobody really says that about a Blackberry or a Hewlett-Packard PC.

But many Apple products remain high-end indulgences for people with the money to spend on an enhanced digital experience. Yes, Steve Jobs has done the masses a service by showing his utilitarian competitors how to devise an artful user interface, which usually trickles down to cheaper generic devices once Apple has moved on to version 4 or 5. But Macs and iPhones and iPads remain too pricey for many mainstream consumers, who might read about the wonders of Apple gizmos the way they read about luxury cars or fancy dinners: Sounds nice, and I hope I can afford one some day. Meanwhile, you'd have to stretch to define a way in which Steve Jobs has materially improved society, enhanced public life or broadly shared his gifts with people who can't afford to be his customers. (Cue the outrage of Apple Nation.)

Jobs was truly a brilliant designer, marketer and technologist--all in one. But it's worth keeping in mind that the digital revolution would have carried on without him. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, the founders of Intel, invented much of the circuitry that powered Jobs's devices over the years, along with many other computing machines. Bill Gates developed software that has powered far more computers than Apple ever built. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, have provided an Internet search service that's arguably more useful to more people--for free--than anything Apple has rolled out. Jobs helped make the first 30 years of the mass-computing era colorful and even fun. But it didn't take him to make it possible.

He did accomplish something, however, that's rare in the annals of business history: He made consumers fall in love with his ideas and his products, and even with him. Jobs wasn't a particularly likeable guy, by most accounts. He had a prickly demeanor and an I-know-better arrogance that would have been the downfall of a lesser visionary. Yet he leaves behind a vast army of Apple acolytes who may propel his ideas to heights beyond Jobs's own reach. In the firmament of business giants, Steve Jobs shines medium-hot, like the sun. But like a few other geniuses who die too young, his star may get brighter the longer he is gone.

Council of Europe demands truth on CIA 'black sites'

Paris (CNN) -- The human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe urged countries that have hosted secret CIA prisons to come clean Monday, as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches.
Thomas Hammarberg said Poland, Romania and Lithuania were among at least seven countries that hosted "black sites" for "enhanced interrogation" during the "war on terror."
"Darkness still enshrouds those who authorized and ran the black sites on European territories," he said. "The full truth must now be established and guarantees given that such forms of co-operation will never be repeated."
CIA officials have acknowledged the rendition program, but refused to discuss details and denied violating any laws. Efforts to challenge the agency and get details about it in U.S. courts have been turned aside.
Hammarberg's statement comes as documents seized from Moammar Gadhafi's compound in Libya shed light on the program of extraordinary rendition, or questioning of terror suspects in third-party countries where U.S. law does not apply.
CNN saw a March 6, 2004, CIA letter to Libyan officials about Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a former jihadist with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and now a senior commander in the anti-Gadhafi forces.
It concerned the Malaysian government's arrest of Abdullah al-Sadiq, Belhaj's nom de guerre for his rendition. A CIA officer said the man and his pregnant wife were being placed on a commercial flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to London via Bangkok and then onto Libya.
"We are planning to arrange to take control of the pair in Bangkok and place them on our aircraft for a flight to your country," the officer wrote.
Belhaj fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan, but left after their fall in 2001 and was arrested in Malaysia in 2004. After some questioning by the CIA, he was sent back to Libya and jailed.
The Council of Europe's Hammarberg said the CIA had held "high-value detainees," including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in Poland, between 2002 and 2003.
The Polish site closed and a new secret prison opened in Romania in 2003, Hammarberg charged, and existed for over two years. Lithuania also hosted two sites, he said.
Polish prosecutors and Lithuanian lawmakers have investigated the phenomenon, but Romania has shown "little genuine will to uncover the whole truth," Hammarberg charged.
"Effective investigations are imperative and long overdue," he said.
Neither the CIA, Romania nor Lithuania immediately responded.
Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it would not comment while prosecutors in the country are still investigating.
The Council of Europe is a 47-member group that promotes democracy and human rights on the continent.

Raymond Davis charged with third-degree assault in US over parking spot fight

Douglas County (US), Oct 3(ANI): Raymond Davis, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contractor who was freed from a Pakistani prison after the United States paid 2.3 million dollars in blood money, has been charged with third-degree assault and disorderly conduct for allegedly fighting with another man over a parking spot in Colorado.

Davis was arrested outside an Einstein Bros Bagels at the Town Center at Highlands Ranch, atHighlands Ranch Parkway and South Broadway on Saturday.

He was later released after posting a 1,750 dollars bond, the Express Tribune reports.

It is reported that Davis and another man with him had been arguing with a third man about a parking spot when the verbal argument escalated into a physical altercation.

In the argument, Davis was the aggressor.

Earlier, on January 27, Davis had killed two reportedly armed men in Lahore.

Although the US government contended that he was protected by diplomatic immunity because of his employment with the US Consulate in Lahore, Davis was jailed and criminally charged by Pakistani authorities with double murder and the illegal possession of a firearm.

A third Pakistani man was also killed "in a hit and run" when a car sped down the wrong side of the road on its way to aid Davis.

On March 16, Davis was released after the families of the two killed men were paid 2.4 million dollars in diyya (a form of monetary compensation or blood money).

Judges then acquitted him on all charges and Davis immediately departed Pakistan. (ANI)

Amanda Knox cleared of murdering British roommate

PERUGIA, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian court cleared 24 year-old American Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend of murdering British student Meredith Kercher in 2007 and set them free on Monday after nearly four years in prison for a crime they always denied committing.

Seattle native Knox and Italian computer student, Raffaele Sollecito, had appealed against a 2009 verdict that found them guilty of murdering 21-year-old Meredith Kercher during what prosecutors said was a sexual assault four years ago.

The court quashed a 26-year jail sentence against Knox, and a 25-year sentence against Sollecito, after independent forensic investigators sharply criticized police scientific evidence, saying it was unreliable.

(Reporting by Deepa Babington)

Scientist wins Nobel for medicine days after death

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A pioneering researcher was awarded theNobel Prize in medicine Monday, three days after dying ofpancreatic cancer without ever knowing he was about to be honored for his immune system work that he had used to try to prolong his own life.

The Nobel committee said it was unaware that Canadian-born cell biologist Ralph Steinman had already died when it awarded the prize to him, American Bruce Beutler and French scientist Jules Hoffmann.

Since the committee is only supposed to consider living scientists, the Nobel Foundation held an emergency meeting Monday and said the decision on the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) prize will remain unchanged.

"The Nobel Prize to Ralph Steinman was made in good faith, based on the assumption that the Nobel laureate was alive," the foundation said.

Steinman, 68, died Sept. 30, according to Rockefeller University in New York. He underwent therapy based on his discovery of the immune system's dendritic cells, for which he won the prize, the university said.

"He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, and his life was extended using a dendritic-cell based immunotherapy of his own design," the university said.

Beutler and Hoffmann were cited for their discoveries in the 1990s of receptor proteins that can recognize bacteria and other microorganisms as they enter the body, and activate the first line of defense in the immune system, known as innate immunity.

Nobel committee members said the work by the three is being used to develop better vaccines, and in the long run could also help treatment of diseases linked to abnormalities in the immune system, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and chronic inflammatory diseases.

The work could also help efforts to make the immune system fight cancerous tumors, the committee said.

No vaccines are on the market yet, but Nobel committee member Goran Hansson told The Associated Press that vaccines against hepatitis are in the pipeline.

"I am very touched. I'm thinking of all the people who worked with me, who gave everything," Hoffmann said by telephone to a news conference in Paris. "I wasn't sure this domain merited a Nobel."

Beutler said he woke up in the middle of the night, glanced at his cellphone and realized he had a new email message.

"And, I squinted at it and I saw that the title line was 'Nobel Prize,' so I thought I should give close attention to that," Beutler said in an interview posted on the Nobel website. "And, I opened it and it was from Goran Hansson, and it said that I had won the Nobel Prize, and so I was thrilled."

Still, he was a "little disbelieving" until he checked his laptop, "and in a few minutes I saw my name there and so I knew it was real."

Since 1974, the Nobel statutes don't allow posthumous awards unless a laureate dies after the announcement but before the Dec. 10 award ceremony. That happened in 1996 when economics winner William Vickrey died a few days after the announcement.

Before the statutes were changed in 1974 two Nobel Prizes were given posthumously. In 1961, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize less than a month after he died in a plane crash during a peace mission to Congo. Swedish poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt won the Nobel in literature in 1931, although he had died in March of that year.

"The Nobel Foundation thus believes that what has occurred is more reminiscent of the example in the statutes concerning a person who has been named as a Nobel Laureate and has died before the actual Nobel Prize Award Ceremony," the foundation said following its meeting.

Nobel officials said the situation was unprecedented, and that Steinman's survivors would receive his share of the prize money. It wasn't immediately clear who would represent him at the ceremony in Stockholm.

Nobel Foundation chairman Lars Heikensten, who started his job in June, said he was stunned when he found out that Steinman was dead.

"My first thought was: 'Wow, this is a remarkable thing to happen now that I'm involved in this for the first time. How do we handle this now?'" he told AP.

Hansson said the medicine committee didn't know Steinman was dead when it chose him.

"It is incredibly sad news," he said. "We can only regret that he didn't have the chance to receive the news he had won the Nobel Prize. Our thoughts are now with his family."

Beutler, 53, holds dual appointments at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and as professor of genetics and immunology at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. He will become a full-time faculty member at UT Southwestern on Dec. 1.

Hoffmann, 70, headed a research laboratory in Strasbourg, France, between 1974 and 2009 and served as president of the French National Academy of Sciences between 2007-08.

Steinman had been head of Rockefeller University's Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases.

"We are all so touched that our father's many years of hard work are being recognized with a Nobel Prize," Steinman's daughter, Alexis Steinman, said in the Rockefeller University statement. "He devoted his life to his work and his family, and he would be truly honored."

Hoffmann's discovery came in 1996 during research on how fruit flies fight infections. Two years later, Beutler's research on mice showed that fruit flies and mammals activate innate immunity in similar ways when attacked by germs.

Steinman's discovery dates back to 1973, when he found a new cell type, the dendritic cell, which has a unique capacity to activate T-cells. Those cells have a key role in adaptive immunity, when antibodies and killer cells fight infections. They also develop a memory that helps the immune system mobilize its defenses next time it comes under a similar attack.

The medicine award kicked off a week of Nobel Prize announcements, and will be followed by the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday, literature on Thursday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The winners of the economics award will be announced on Oct. 10.

The coveted prizes were established by wealthy Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel — the inventor of dynamite — except for the economics award, which was created by Sweden's central bank in 1968 in Nobel's memory. The prizes are always handed out on Dec. 10, on the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Last year's medicine award went to British professor Robert Edwards for fertility research that led to the first test tube baby.

___

Associated Press writer Malin Rising contributed to this report.

Anti-terrorism success may not help Obama in 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama may have a string of counterterrorism successes and earned high marks from the public on foreign policy, but neither is likely to help him hold the White House.

For his administration, this re-election reality is a frustrating bottom line.

When the first-term senator won the presidency, questions lingered about his readiness to handle national security matters. Yet Obamahas received wide praise for operations that have killed terrorist leaders, most notably Osama bin Laden in May, and Anwar al-Awlaki on Friday.

Al-Awlaki, an American citizen targeted in the U.S. drone attack, was deemed by the administration as having a "significant operational role" in terrorist plots. They included two nearly catastrophic attacks on U.S.-bound planes, an airliner on Christmas 2009 and cargo planes last year.

Obama also can claim credit for aiding Libyan rebels in ousting Moammar Gadhafi, for supporting other democratic uprisings in the Arab world, for drawing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for negotiating a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

But barring unforeseen events, the nation's stubbornly high unemployment rate and turmoil in the financial markets mean people are far more likely to vote next November with the economy foremost in their minds, not the president's record on foreign policy and terrorism.

That's bad news for the administration because people give Obama far higher approval ratings on terrorism than on his handling of the economy.

In fact, Obama's approval rating on terrorism was higher than on any other issue, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in late August. It showed that 60 percent of those surveyed approved of his handling of terrorism. Just 36 percent approved of his handling of the economy, an all-time low for Obama.

Obama's overall approval rating also fell to an all-time low in the poll, 46 percent.

The re-election picture gets even gloomier given that 92 percent of those questioned said the economy was an extremely or very important issue. By comparison, 73 percent put the same emphasis on terrorism, but even they're divided over whether Obama should be re-elected.

It's also unclear whether the killing of al-Awlaki will bring Obama any new political support. The fiery American-born cleric had a hand in several high-profile terror attempts on the U.S., but his name is hardly as familiar to most Americans as bin Laden.

Obama's orders for U.S. special forces to kill bin Laden during a raid on his Pakistani compound did give the president's approval rating a bump. But it proved fleeting, further evidence of the secondary role of terrorism for voters.

"It's not 2004," said Rick Nelson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This isn't the primary issue facing the United States. The primary issue is the economy and jobs. That issue is going to overshadow anything we do overseas."

The joint CIA-U.S. military airstrike that targeted al-Awlaki and killed a second American citizen wasn't without controversy.

The attack apparently was the first time a U.S. citizen was tracked and executed based on secret intelligence and the president's say-so, raising questions about the reach of presidents' powers.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a GOP presidential contender, called it an "assassination" and said Americans should not casually accept such violence against U.S. citizens, even those with strong ties to terrorism

But most other top Republicans running for Obama's job saw little downside in praising the president for his role.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry congratulated Obama, along with the military and intelligence agencies, for "aggressive anti-terror policies." Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney commended the president for his efforts to keep Americans safe and said al-Awlaki's death was a "major victory" in the terrorism fight.

With the first nominating contests about three months away, foreign policy and terrorism have been virtually absent from the Republican race. When the issues have arisen, most GOP contenders have tried to portray the president as a weak leader. It's a sentiment they hope taps into voters' frustration with the economy.

Bruce Jones, an expert on transnational threats, said Obama's success against terrorist leaders may help counter that GOP strategy.

"At the very least, it takes away from the critics the idea that he can't lead, that he doesn't understand those kinds of issues," said Jones, also a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

Beyond the counterterrorism efforts, Obama aides say they believe the president will get credit come Election Day for his foreign policy achievements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as for his support of other democratic uprisings throughout the Arab world. They say the president has boosted U.S. standing in the world, making it easier to get international backing for his policies, rather than having to go it alone.

But there is some concern among Obama backers that the one foreign policy issue most likely to find a place in the 2012 campaign is one that has achieved little success: securing peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Republicans and some Jewish voters paint him as anti-Israel, while much of the world disagrees with his opposition to Palestinian efforts to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations.

___

Associated Press writer Phillip Elliott and news survey specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

___

Associated Press writer Julie Pace can be reached at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

US general sees end to Libya mission

AP Exclusive

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military mission in Libya is largely complete and NATO's involvement could begin to wrap up as soon as this coming week after allied leaders meet in Brussels, according to the top U.S. commander for Africa.

Army Gen. Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, told The Associated Press that American military leaders are expected to give NATO ministers their assessment of the situation during meetings late in the week.

NATO could decide to end the mission even though ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi is still at large and his forces are still entrenched in strongholds such as Sirte and Bani Walid.

NATO's decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, agreed on Sept. 21 to extend the mission over the oil-rich North African nation for another 90 days, but officials have said the decision would be reviewed periodically.

Ham said that the National Transitional Council and its forces should be in "reasonable control" of population centers before the end of the NATO mission, dubbed Unified Protector. And he said they are close to that now.

When NATO makes its decision, Ham said he believes there would be a seamless transition of control over the air and maritime operations to U.S. Africa Command. And, at least initially, some of the military surveillance coverage would remain in place.

"We don't want to go from what's there now to zero overnight," Ham said. "There will be some missions that will need to be sustained for some period of time, if for no other reason than to offer assurances to the interim government for things like border security, until such time that they are ready to do all that themselves."

U.S. intelligence and surveillance assets, such as drones, will likely stay in the region also to keep watch over weapons caches, to prevent the proliferation of weapons from Libya into neighboring countries.

But Ham said air strikes would likely end, unless specifically requested by the Libyan transitional government.

NATO took over command of the mission in March, after it was initially led by the U.S. in the early days of the bombing campaign. The mission was designed to enforce a U.N. resolution allowing the imposition of a no-fly zone and military action to protect Libyan civilians.

The aggressive bombing runs that battered Gadhafi forces, weapons, air control, and other key targets, gave the revolutionary forces the time and breathing room to organize and begin to push into regime strongholds. A key turning point came about a month ago when the fighters were able to seize the capital, Tripoli, effectively ending Gadhafi's rule.

Now, the National Transitional Council has taken over the leadership of the nation and is promising to set up its new interim government, even as it continues to fight forces still loyal to the fugitive leader.

Ham said NATO need not wait until Gadhafi is found and forced out of the country before ending the Libyan mission.

"The fact that he is still at large some place is really more a matter for the Libyans than it is for anybody else," said Ham, adding that President Barack Obama and other leaders made it clear that the object of the mission was about protecting the people, not killing Gadhafi.

The goal now, said Ham, is for the U.S. to eventually establish a normal, military-to-military relationship with Libya, including embassy staff and discussions about what security assistance the Libyans might want from America. He said he doesn't see a major U.S. role in training or other military assistance, because other Arab nations are better suited for that.

He added that the U.S. may be able to help re-establish Libya's Coast Guard and maritime domain.

Any U.S. military footprint in the country would remain small — probably less than two dozen troops at the embassy to work as staff and perform security.

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Online:

U.S. Africa Command: http://www.africom.mil/

Afghan president says talks with Taliban useless

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who for years pushed for reconciliation with the Taliban, now says attempts to negotiate with the insurgent movement are futile and efforts at dialogue should focus instead on neighboring Pakistan.

Karzai explained in a videotaped speech released by his office Saturday that he changed his views about trying to talk to the Taliban after a suicide bomber, claiming to be a peace emissary sent by the insurgents, killed former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani at his home on Sept. 20. Rabbani was leading Karzai's effort to broker peace with the Taliban.

"Their messengers are coming and killing. ... So with whom should we make peace?" Karzai said Friday to a gathering of the nation's top religious leaders that was videotaped.

"I cannot find Mullah Mohammad Omar," Karzai said, referring to the Taliban's one-eyed leader. "Where is he? I cannot find the Taliban council. Where is it?

"I don't have any other answer except to say that the other side for this negotiation is Pakistan," Karzai said.

Most of the Taliban leadership is thought to be living in Pakistan, and its governing council — known as the Quetta Shura — is based in the southern Pakistani city of the same name. It has long been believed that the Pakistani government has sheltered and influenced the group.

Afghanistan said Saturday it had evidence that Rabbani's assassination was planned by Talibanfigures living in Quetta.

Afghan Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi went even further, telling Afghan lawmakers Saturday that Pakistan's intelligence service, known as the ISI, was involved in Rabbani's killing — an allegation that Pakistan has denied. "Without any doubt, ISI, is involved in this," Mohammadi said.

Last week, U.S. officials leveled accusations of their own, saying Pakistan's spy agency assisted the Haqqani network — a militant group allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban — in attacks on Western targets in Afghanistan. It was the most serious allegation yet of Pakistani duplicity in the 10-year war.

The Pakistan-based Haqqani network has been described as the top security threat in Afghanistan.

NATO said Saturday it captured Haji Mali Khan, a senior Haqqani leader inside Afghanistan, describing his arrest as a "significant milestone" in disrupting the terror group's operations.

The group has been blamed for hundreds of attacks, including a 20-hour siege of the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters last month.

The United States and other members of the international community have in the past accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban, and the Haqqanis in particular, to maintain safe havens in the country's tribal areas along the Afghan border — particularly in North Waziristan.

An Afghan government statement issued earlier in the past week said Pakistan had failed to take steps to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries. It added that if Pakistan's intelligence service is using the Taliban against Afghanistan, then the Afghan government needs to have negotiations with Pakistan, "not the Taliban."

Khan, the Haqqani leader being held by NATO, was seized Tuesday during an operation in eastern Paktia province's Jani Khel district, which borders Pakistan, the alliance said.

It was the most significant capture of a Haqqani leader in Afghanistan, and could dent the group's ability to operate along the porous border with Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.

Shortly after NATO's announcement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied in a message to Afghan media that Khan had been arrested but provided no evidence that he was free.

NATO described Khan as an uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani, two sons of the network's aging leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani.

"He was one of the highest ranking members of the Haqqani network and a revered elder of the Haqqani clan," NATO said of Khan.

During the operation Tuesday, Khan surrendered without resistance and NATO forces also arrested his deputy and bodyguard, along with a number of other insurgents, the alliance said.

"The Haqqani network and its safe havens remain a top priority for Afghan and coalition forces," NATO concluded.

The NATO statement said security forces have conducted more than 500 operations so far in 2011 in an effort to disrupt the Haqqani network leadership, resulting in the deaths of 20 operatives and the capture of nearly 300 insurgent leaders and 1,300 suspected Haqqani insurgents.

In a related development, Afghanistan's intelligence service said Saturday it has given Pakistan hard evidence that Rabbani's assassination was planned in the southern outskirts of Quetta where key Taliban leaders are based.

The Taliban have not claimed responsibility for killing Rabbani.

Lutifullah Mashal, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, provided the first details about where the assassination was allegedly planned at a news conference.

"The place where Professor Rabbani's killing was planned is a town called Satellite near Quetta, Pakistan," Mashal told reporters. "The key person involved in the assassination of Rabbani has been arrested and he has provided lots of strong evidence about where and how it was planned. We have given all that evidence to the Pakistan embassy."

The Afghan intelligence documents handed over to Pakistan's embassy in Kabul include the address, photographs and a layout of a house in Satellite, Mashal said. He said the Pakistanis also have been provided with the names of individuals who discussed Rabbani's assassination at the house in Satellite.

Satellite Town is an upscale residential area very close to the city center and it is known to residents that Afghan Taliban live there.

Mashal would not disclose the identity of the person in custody, saying only that he was a second-tier figure within the Taliban hierarchy.

He said additional details would be released soon by a commission set up to investigate Rabbani's death.

Asked what Afghanistan expected Pakistan to do with the information, Mashal referred the question to the Afghan Foreign Ministry and the commission.

"This is all concrete evidence that nobody can ignore," he said.

___

Deb Riechmann and Patrick Quinn contributed to this report from Kabul.

Technorati Tags: afghanistan,Taliban

Pakistan warns against U.S. attack on militants

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. military action against insurgents inPakistan would be unacceptable and the country's army would be capable of responding, intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha told a meeting of political leaders in Islamabad, according to media reports.

Express News TV cited Pasha as saying an "American attack on Pakistan in the name of (fighting) extremism is not acceptable."

However, several television news reports said Pasha had also told an all-party meeting to discuss the crisis in ties between Washington and Islamabad that Pakistan would not allow the situation to get to a "point of no return."

Pakistan has long faced U.S. demands to attack militants on its side of the border with Afghanistan.

But the pressure has escalated since the top U.S. military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, accused Pakistan last week of supporting an attack by the militant Haqqani network on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

Support is growing in the U.S. Congress for expanding American military action in Pakistan beyond drone strikes against militants, said Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential Republican voice on foreign policy and military affairs.

Islamabad is reluctant to go after the Haqqanis -- even though the United States provides billions of dollars in aid -- saying its troops are stretched fighting Taliban insurgents.

Pakistan says it has sacrificed more lives than any of the countries that joined the "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks by Islamist militants on the United States in 2001.

Pakistan's military faced withering public criticism after a surprise U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a garrison town not far from Islamabad in May.

A similar U.S. operation against militants in North Waziristan on the Afghan border, where American officials say the Haqqanis are based, would be another humiliation for the powerful army.

Graham said in an interview with Reuters that U.S. lawmakers might support military options beyond drone strikes that have been going on for years inside Pakistani territory.

Those options may include using U.S. bomber planes within Pakistan, said, adding that he did not advocate sending U.S. ground troops into the country.

"I would say when it comes to defending American troops, you don't want to limit yourself," Graham said. "This is not a boots-on-the-ground engagement -- I'm not talking about that, but we have a lot of assets beyond drones."

Graham said U.S. lawmakers would think about stepping up the military pressure. "If people believe it's gotten to the point that is the only way really to protect our interests, I think there would be a lot of support," he said.

REVIEWING AID

Pakistan was designated a major non-Nato ally by the United States for its support of coalition military operations in Afghanistan after 9/11.

But their relationship has been dogged by mistrust. Although

regarded as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, Pakistan is often seen from Washington as an unreliable partner.

Following U.S. accusations that some in the Pakistani government have aided anti-U.S. militants, Congress is re-evaluating its 2009 promise to triple non-military aid to Pakistan to a total of $7.5 billion over five years.

That aid came on top of billions in security assistance provided since 2001, which Washington is also rethinking.

Any unilateral U.S. military action to go after the Haqqanis would deepen anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, which is already running high over U.S. drone strikes and other issues, reducing the space for the government and army to collaborate with Washington.

The Haqqani network is allied with Afghanistan's Taliban and is believed to have close links to al Qaeda. It fights U.S. and NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan. The group's leader says it is no longer based in North Waziristan and feels secure operating in Afghanistan after making battlefield gains.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider and Augustine Anthony in Islamabad, Mirwais Harooni in Kabul and Missy Ryan and Susan Cornwall in Washington; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by John Chalmers)

Analysis: Pakistan's double-game: treachery or strategy?

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Washington has just about had it with Pakistan.

"Turns out they are disloyal, deceptive and a danger to the United States," fumed Republican Representative Ted Poe last week. "We pay them to hate us. Now we pay them to bomb us. Let's not pay them at all."

For many in America, Islamabad has been nothing short of perfidious since joining a strategic alliance with Washington 10 years ago: selectively cooperating in the war on extremist violence and taking billions of dollars in aid to do the job, while all the time sheltering and supporting Islamist militant groups that fight NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has angrily denied the charges, but if its critics are right, what could the explanation be for such duplicity? What strategic agendas might be hidden behind this puzzling statecraft?

The answer is that Pakistan wants to guarantee for itself a stake in Afghanistan's political future.

It knows that, as U.S. forces gradually withdraw from Afghanistan, ethnic groups will be competing for ascendancy there and other regional powers - from India to China and Iran - will be jostling for a foot in the door.

Islamabad's support for the Taliban movement in the 1990s gives it an outsized influence among Afghanistan's Pashtuns, who make up about 42 percent of the total population and who maintain close ties with their Pakistani fellow tribesmen.

In particular, Pakistan's powerful military is determined there should be no vacuum in Afghanistan that could be filled by its arch-foe, India.

INDIA FOCUS

Pakistan has fought three wars with its neighbor since the bloody partition of the subcontinent that led to the creation of the country in 1947, and mutual suspicion still hobbles relations between the two nuclear-armed powers today.

"They still think India is their primary policy," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and prominent political analyst. "India is always in the back of their minds."

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani - unprompted - complained that Washington's failure to deal even-handedly with New Delhi and Islamabad was a source of regional instability.

Aqil Shah, a South Asia security expert at the Harvard Society of Fellows, said Islamabad's worst-case scenario would be an Afghanistan controlled or dominated by groups with ties to India, such as the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, which it fears would pursue activities hostile to Pakistan.

"Ideally, the military would like Afghanistan to become a relatively stable satellite dominated by Islamist Pashtuns," Shah wrote in a Foreign Affairs article this week.

Although Pakistan, an Islamic state, officially abandoned support for the predominantly Pashtun Taliban after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, elements of the military never made the doctrinal shift.

Few doubt that the shadowy intelligence directorate, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has maintained links to the Taliban that emerged from its support for the Afghan mujahideen during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Until recently, there appeared to be a grudging acceptance from Washington that this was the inevitable status quo.

That was until it emerged in May that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden - who was killed in a U.S. Navy SEALs raid - had been hiding out in a Pakistani garrison town just two hours up the road from Islamabad, by some accounts for up to five years.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States have been stormy ever since, culminating in a tirade by the outgoing U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, last week.

Mullen described the Haqqani network, the most feared faction among Taliban militants in Afghanistan, as a "veritable arm" of the ISI and accused Islamabad of providing support for the group's September 13 attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

The reaction in Islamabad has been one of stunned outrage.

Washington has not gone public with evidence to back its accusation, and Pakistani officials say that contacts with the Haqqani group do not amount to actual support.

However, Imran Khan, a Pakistani cricketer-turned-populist-politician, said this week that it was too much to expect that old friends could have become enemies overnight.

He told Reuters that, instead of demanding that Pakistan attack the Haqqanis in the mountainous border region of North Waziristan, the United States should use Islamabad's leverage with the group to bring the Afghan Taliban into negotiations.

"Haqqani could be your ticket to getting them on the negotiating table, which at the moment they are refusing," Khan said. "So I think that is a much saner policy than to ask Pakistan to try to take them on."

REGIONAL GAME

The big risk for the United States in berating Islamabad is that it will exacerbate anti-American sentiment, which already runs deep in Pakistan, and perhaps embolden it further.

C. Raja Mohan, senior fellow at New Delhi's Center for Policy Research, said Pakistan was probably gambling that the United States' economic crisis and upcoming presidential elections would distract Washington.

"The real game is unfolding on the ground with the Americans. The Pakistan army is betting that the United States does not have too many choices and more broadly that the U.S. is on the decline, he said.

It is also becoming clear that as Pakistan's relations with Washington deteriorate, it can fall back into the arms of its "all-weather friend," China, the energy-hungry giant that is the biggest investor in Afghanistan's nascent resources sector.

Pakistani officials heaped praise on Beijing this week as a Chinese minister visited Islamabad. Among them was army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, arguably the country's most powerful man, who spoke of China's "unwavering support."

In addition, Pakistan has extended a cordial hand to Iran, which also shares a border with Afghanistan.

Teheran has been mostly opposed to the Taliban, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims while Iran is predominantly Shi'ite. But Iran's anti-Americanism is more deep-seated.

"My reading is the Iranians want to see the Americans go," said Raja Mohan, the Indian analyst. "They have a problem with the Taliban, but any American retreat will suit them. Iran in the short term is looking at the Americans being humiliated."

ARMY CALLS THE SHOTS

The supremacy of the military in Pakistan means that Washington has little to gain little from wagging its finger about ties with the Taliban at the civilian government, which is regularly lashed for its incompetence and corruption.

"The state has become so soft and powerless it can't make any difference," said Masood, the Pakistani retired general. "Any change will have to come from the military."

Daniel Markey, a senior fellow for South Asia at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, said the problem lies with a security establishment that continues to believe that arming and working - actively and passively - with militant groups serves its purposes.

"Until ... soul-searching takes place within the Pakistani military and the ISI, you're not likely to see an end to these U.S. demands, and a real shift in terms of the relationship," Markey said in an online discussion this week. "This is the most significant shift that has to take place."

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Pakistan pushes back against U.S., woos China

 

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan warned the United States on Tuesday to stop accusing it of playing a double game with Islamist militants and heaped praise on "all-weather friend" China.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, speaking exclusively to Reuters, said any unilateral military action by the United States to hunt down militants of the Haqqani network inside Pakistan would be a violation of his country's sovereignty.

However, he side-stepped questions on the tense relations with the United States and offered no indications of any steps Pakistan might take to soothe the fury in Washington.

The outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, last week described the Haqqani network, the most violent faction among Taliban militants in Afghanistan, as a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's ISI spy agency and accused Islamabad of providing support for the group's September 13 attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

"The negative messaging, naturally that is disturbing my people," Gilani said in the interview from his office in Islamabad. "If there is messaging that is not appropriate to our friendship, then naturally it is extremely difficult to convince my public. Therefore they should be sending positive messages."

Since Mullen's comments, Pakistan has launched a diplomatic counter-attack and attempted to drum up support from its strongest ally in the region, China.

Pakistani officials have been heaping praise on China since its public security minister arrived here on Monday for high-level talks.

"We are true friends and we count on each other," Gilani said in separate comments broadcast on television networks after talks with Meng Jianzhu on Tuesday.

The military, Pakistan's most powerful institution, also said it appreciated its giant Asian neighbor's support. Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani thanked Meng for China's "unwavering support".

China and Pakistan call each other "all-weather friends" and their close ties have been underpinned by long-standing wariness of their common neighbor, India, and a desire to hedge against U.S. influence across the region.

"They (the Pakistanis) are trying to use their diplomatic options as much as possible to defuse pressure on them. They hope China will help them in this crisis," said security analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.

SLIM ACHIEVEMENTS

Asked why the United States had suddenly ratcheted up its criticism of Pakistan, Gilani implied that it reflected Washington's frustration with the war in Afghanistan ahead of a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country in 2014.

"Certainly they expected more results from Afghanistan, which they have not been able to achieve as yet," he said. "They have not achieved what they visualized."

Rejecting allegations that Islamabad was behind any violence across its border, he said: "It is in the interest of Pakistan to have a stable Afghanistan".

The United States has been pressing Pakistan to attack the Haqqani network, which it believes is based in North Waziristan near the Afghan border. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the group, says it is no longer based in Pakistan and feels safe operating in Afghanistan.

Analysts say Pakistan sees the Haqqanis as a counterweight to the growing influence of rival India in Afghanistan and is highly unlikely to go after the group.

The United States seems frustrated at its inability to influence Pakistani policy on militants.

In a meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, at the United Nations on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Beijing to open a dialogue with Washington on Pakistan.

"We have stated this before, but there's clearly an urgency given recent developments and also given the close relationship that exists between Pakistan and China," a State Department official said in a briefing to reporters.

CHINA MORE POPULAR

China is vastly more popular in Pakistan than the United States, which is seen as fickle and favoring India.

Much of the Pakistani public believes that since the end of the Cold War, the United States has tilted toward India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan since the violent partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

In a demonstration of that distrust, hundreds turned out on Tuesday for anti-American rallies in Pakistani cities.

In Hyderabad, they burned pictures of U.S. President Barack Obama and Mullen, while in Karachi they protested in front of the U.S. consulate and the headquarters of the Pakistan People's Party. In Landikotal in the Khyber agency near the Afghan border, about 1,000 people turned out for a rally organized by the religious party Jamaat-e-Islami.

Also on Tuesday, a suspected U.S. drone strike on a house in Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan's tribal region on the Afghan border killed at least three alleged militants, local intelligence officials said.

Gilani pointed out that Washington did not help itself when it struck a deal on civilian nuclear cooperation with New Delhi but not Islamabad.

"There is an acute shortage of electricity in Pakistan. And there are riots. And the opposition is playing to the gallery because there is a shortage of electricity," he said.

"But they (the United States) are doing the civilian nuclear deal not with Pakistan, but with India. Now how can I convince my public that they are your (Pakistan's) friends and not the friends of India? ... the perception matters."

In a tit-for-tat deal in May, Pakistan inaugurated its second Chinese-made nuclear power reactor. China is building two more reactors at the same site, despite international misgivings about risks to nuclear safety and the integrity of non-proliferation rules.

China has also helped build the deep-sea Gwadar port on Pakistan's Arabian Sea coast, partly with a view to opening up an energy and trade corridor from the Gulf to western China, and has been a major supplier of military hardware to Pakistan.

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Woodward)

Afghan employee kills U.S. citizen at Kabul CIA base

By Mirwais Harooni and Emma Graham-Harrison | Reuters

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan employee of the U.S. government opened fire inside a CIA office in Kabul on Sunday evening, killing an American and injuring a second, U.S. and Afghan officials said, in the second major breach of embassy security in two weeks.

The killing adds to a sense of insecurity already heightened by a 20 hour-siege of the diplomatic district in mid-September, and the assassination a week later of the top government peace envoy, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

The CIA compound inside the Ariana hotel is one of the most heavily guarded in Kabul, and has been off-limits -- along with the road that runs beside it -- for almost a decade, since shortly after the Taliban's fall from power in 2001.

It also lies at the heart of the capital's heavily guarded military, political and diplomatic district, a virtual "green zone" that is almost impossible for ordinary Afghans to enter.

It was not clear if the U.S. citizens were victims of a rogue employee who had been won over to the insurgent cause, or just the escalation of an argument in a city where tensions are high and many people carry guns. There are precedents for both.

The "lone attacker" was killed, and the injured U.S. citizen was taken to a military hospital, U.S. embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall said on Monday.

"There was a shooting incident at an annex of the U.S. embassy in Kabul last night involving an Afghan employee who was killed. The motivation for the attack is still under investigation at this time," Sundwall said.

Sundwall declined comment on whether the annex housed the CIA, but Kabul Police Chief Ayub Salangi said there had been an exchange of fire at the Ariana hotel, which he described as a CIA office. He declined further comment on what happened in an area where access is restricted even for Afghan forces.

TURNED BY THE TALIBAN?

The shooting follows a string of attacks by Afghan security forces against their NATO-led mentors carried out either by "rogue" soldiers and police or by insurgents who have infiltrated security forces.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid could not immediately be reached for comment, but a senior Taliban commander reached by phone from Pakistan said the man had secretly joined the insurgents after a group of Taliban approached him to remind him "of his moral and religious duty as an Afghan."

"He used the enemy's weapons against the enemy and that's what we have been doing everywhere in Afghanistan," said the Taliban commander, who is operating in Afghanistan and asked for anonymity for security reasons.

"This place is at the heart of Kabul and we wanted to tell the Americans that we can chase them anywhere," he added.

The Ariana hotel is just a few blocks away from the Presidential Palace and the U.S. embassy, and has been used by ruling regimes for many years.

Waheed Mujhda, of the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Center in Kabul, questioned the Taliban's claim of responsibility and said the incident characterized the level of mistrust between the United States and its Afghan allies.

"This is a big security concern for the Americans and it shows they can't fully trust their Afghan staff. But the Americans never want to accept that there are serious trust and cooperation issues and they have encountered that in their security operations with Afghan forces."

HISTORY OF ATTACKS

The CIA suffered the second deadliest attack in its history on an Afghan base at the end of 2009, when a would-be informant blew himself up, killing seven CIA officers.

The agency has acknowledged "missteps" and "shortcomings" that included failing to act on warnings about the assailant from Jordanian intelligence or take security precautions.

Suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi tricked the CIA into believing he could be a useful tool in the battle against al Qaeda, and was invited inside a well-fortified U.S. compound in Khost province, near the border with Pakistan.

The CIA director at the time, Leon Panetta, made 23 changes after that attack, but noted that counterterrorism work still required working with "dangerous people in situations involving a high degree of ambiguity and risk."

Sunday's shooting came the same month that insurgents took over an unfinished high-rise near the city's heavily guarded military, political and diplomatic heart and showered rockets down on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters.

That attack lasted 20 hours, and the United States has blamed it on the Haqqani network of militants, who were long based in Pakistan's lawless frontier regions although they now say they have moved back into Afghanistan.

Washington accused Pakistan's spy service of offering them support. Pakistan has strongly denied the allegations.

(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR, Mark Hosenball in WASHINGTON and Martin Petty in KABUL;)

Senator: Consider military action against Pakistan

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday that the U.S. should consider military action against Pakistan if it continues to support terrorist attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.

"The sovereign nation of Pakistan is engaging in hostile acts against the United States and our ally Afghanistan that must cease, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told "Fox News Sunday."

He said if experts decided that the U.S. needs to "elevate its response," he was confident there would be strong bipartisan support in Congress for such action.

Graham did not call for military action but said "all options" should be considered. He said assistance to Pakistan should be reconfigured and that the U.S. should no longer designate an amount of aid for Pakistan but have a more "transactional relationship" with the country.

"They're killing American soldiers," he said. "If they continue to embrace terrorism as a part of their national strategy, we're going to have to put all options on the table, including defending our troops."

In testimony last week to Graham's committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency had backed extremists in planning and executing the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan and a truck bomb attack that wounded 77 American soldiers. Both occurred this month.

Mullen contended that the Haqqani insurgent network "acts as a veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency as it undermined U.S.-Pakistan relations, already tenuous because of the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan exports violence, Mullen said, and threatens any success in the 10-year-old war.

Graham said Pakistan does cooperate with the U.S. in actions against al-Qaida. But he said the Pakistani military feels threatened by a democracy in Afghanistan and is betting that the Taliban will come back there.

"The best solution is for Pakistan to fight all forms of terrorism, embrace working with us so that we can deal with terrorism along their border, because it is the biggest threat to stability," he said. "But Pakistan is terrorism itself. They have made a tremendous miscalculation."

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