This Article is From Apr 25, 2009

Pak talks tough on Taliban after US whip

Pak talks tough on Taliban after US whip
Islamabad: Islamabad is now talking tough on the Taliban, a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cracked the whip calling it a mortal threat to America and the world.

She also made it clear that promises will no longer do that Pakistan must act.

After the tough stand, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari chaired a late night meeting with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Army Chief and the President of the Awami National Party Asfandyar Wali Khan and reviewed the security situation in the Taliban controlled SWAT Valley.

A presidential statement said the government will neither compromise on enforcing the writ of the state, nor allow the militants and non-state actors to establish their own parallel authority in any part of the country through use of force.

Clinton acknowledged that the United States too had a share in creating the problem that plagues Pakistan today. Explaining how militancy in Pakistan was linked to the US-backed proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Hillary said that the people we are fighting today were funded by us twenty years ago.

"We did it because we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union," she added.

She said, "The problems we face now to some extent we have to take responsibility for, having contributed to it. We also have a history of kind of moving in and out of Pakistan."

Meanwhile, despite reports of the Taliban retreat, it was found that several fighters at their posts in Buner's Chinglai village.

In Totalai village in NWFP, Pakistani troops are still bunkered around the village police station. Several platoons of troops attempted to move into Buner but reportedly came under fire from militants.

"As long as the drone attacks continue in South Waziristan, we will continue these attacks in
retaliation, because all these cruel acts are done by the Pakistani army and the government," said Safiullah, a purported Taliban commander in Chinglai.
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