Clinton puzzled at Pakistan failure to find al Qaeda

By Andrew Quinn Andrew Quinn –

October 29, 2009

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) –

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's said on Thursday it was "hard to believe" that no one in Pakistan's government knew where al-Qaeda leaders were hiding, striking a new tone on a trip where Washington's credibility has come under attack.

Scores of al-Qaeda leaders and their operatives, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be in hiding in the rugged border territory that divides Pakistan and Afghanistan, but both countries routinely accuse the other of being the main sanctuary

"I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," she told a group of newspaper editors during a meeting in Lahore.

"Maybe they are not 'get-at able'. I don't know," she said.

Clinton's pointed remark was the first public gripe on a trip aimed at turning around a U.S.-Pakistan relationship under serious strain, but bound in the struggle against (Pakistani religious goups).

"I am more than willing to hear every complaint about the United States," Clinton said, ""but this is a two way street.

"If we are going to have a mature partnership where we work together" then "there are issues that not just the United States but others have with your government and with your military security establishment."

Clinton, who has sought to use her own personal outreach to overcome rising anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, earlier repeated her conviction that the two countries' common interests far outweighed their differences.

"I am well aware that there is a trust deficit," Clinton told students at a "town-hall" style meeting at Government College University in Lahore.

"My message is that's not the way it should be. We cannot let a minority of people in both countries determine our relationship."

Clinton's arrival in Pakistan on Wednesday was overshadowed by a car bomb blast that ripped through a market in the city of Peshawar, killing more than 100 people, in one of the largest recent attacks by (Pakistani Taliban fighters).

Clinton urged Pakistan's youth to stand firm against the (Taliban) forces.

She carried the same message in her meetings with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and other high officials in Islamabad on Wednesday.

Clinton was due to meet Pakistan's army and security chiefs on Thursday, where she was expected to discuss Pakistan's latest military campaign against (Pakistani Taliban fighters) in South Waziristan as well as the U.S.-led war against Taliban (fighters) in neighboring Afghanistan.

PERSONAL AFFINITY

U.S. officials have cast Clinton's visit to Pakistan as a chance to counter anti-American broadsides and to showcase Clinton's personal affinity for a country she says she knows and loves deeply.

On Thursday, she toured the massive red sandstone Badshahi Mosque in central Lahore, extolling the cultural achievements of a country more often in the headlines for political and religious strife.

But the tense security situation in Pakistan was clear. Gunmen stood guard in the mosque minarets, while Lahore's normally busy main streets were emptied and armed police kept bystanders penned back in narrow alleyways as Clinton's motorcade sped past.

While acknowledging the many bumps in U.S.-Pakistan relations, Clinton nevertheless asked for understanding, patience and commitment, saying her own experience in deciding to join the Obama administration after running against Barack Obama for the presidency was instructive.

"What we have together is far greater than what divided us," Clinton told the students, referring to her relations with Obama. "And that is what I feel about the United States and Pakistan."

(Editing by David Fox).

Clinton says Pakistan missed chances with al-Qaida

Associated Press, October 29, 2009

ISLAMABAD –

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is suggesting that Pakistan's government has squandered chances to kill or capture al-Qaida leaders.

She made the remark in an interview Thursday with Pakistani journalists during a trip to the city of Lahore. She later flew to the capital, Islamabad, for talks with army chief and additional meetings.

Clinton said al-Qaida has used Pakistan as a haven since 2002. She said she finds it hard to believe that nobody in Pakistan's government knows where the leaders of Osama bin Laden's network are hiding.

She also said she finds it hard to believe that Pakistani authorities couldn't "get them" if they wanted to.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) —

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that Pakistan had little choice but to take a more aggressive approach to combating the Pakistani Taliban and other insurgents that threaten to destabilize the country.

With the country reeling from Wednesday's devastating bombing that killed at least 105 people in Peshawar, Clinton engaged in an intense give-and-take with students at the Government College of Lahore, insisting that inaction by the government would have ceded ground to terrorists.

"If you want to see your territory shrink, that's your choice," she said, adding that she believed it would be a bad choice.

Dozens of students rushed to line up for the microphone when the session began. Their questions were not hostile, but showed a strong sense of doubt that the U.S. can be a reliable and trusted partner for Pakistan.

Clinton met with the students on the second day of a three-day visit to Pakistan, her first as secretary of state. The Peshawar bombing, set off in a market crowded with women and children, appeared timed to overshadow her arrival. It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since 2007.

Clinton likened Pakistan's situation — with Taliban forces taking over substantial swaths of land in the Swat valley and in areas along the Afghan border — to a theoretical advance of terrorists into the United States from across the Canadian border.

It would be unthinkable, she said, for the U.S. government to decide, "Let them have Washington (state)" first, then Montana, then the sparsely populated Dakotas, because those states are far from the major centers of population and power on the East Coast.

Clinton was responding to a student who suggested that Washington was forcing Pakistan to use military force on its own territory. It was one of several questions from the students that raised doubts about the relationship between the United States and Pakistan.

During her hour-long appearance at the college, Clinton stressed that a key purpose of her three-day visit to Pakistan, which began Wednesday, was to reach out to ordinary Pakistanis and urge a better effort to bridge differences and improve mutual understanding.

"We are now at a point where we can chart a different course," she said, referring to past differences over an absence of democracy in Pakistan and Pakistani association with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

As a way of repudiating past U.S. policies toward Pakistan, Clinton told the students "there is a huge difference" between the Obama administration's approach and that of former President George W. Bush.

"I spent my entire eight years in the Senate opposing him," she said to a burst of applause from the audience of several hundred students. "So, to me, it's like daylight and dark."

Although Clinton said she was making a priority of engaging frankly and openly on her visit, she declined to talk about a subject that has stirred some of the strongest feelings of anti-Americanism here — U.S. drone aircraft attacks against extremist targets on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border.

The Obama administration routinely refuses to acknowledge publicly that the attacks are taking place.

"There is a war going on," she said, and the U.S. wants to help Pakistan be successful.

The drone attacks have killed a number of Pakistani civilians, while also reportedly succeeding in eliminating some high-level Taliban and other extremist group leaders.

At the same time, though, the U.S. has been providing Pakistani commanders with video images and target information from its military drones as Pakistan's army pushes its ground offensive in Waziristan, U.S. officials said earlier this week.

Also sensitive is the way the U.S. has handled millions of dollars in aid to the Pakistani military. The U.S. in recent months has rushed helicopters and other military equipment to the country as Islamabad has launched its counterinsurgency offensives in Swat Valley and South Waziristan.

The administration sped the delivery of 10 Mi-17 troop transport helicopters starting in June, and in July sent 200 night vision goggles, nearly more than 9,000 sets of body armor, several hundred radios and other equipment.

"We've put military assistance to Pakistan on a wartime footing," Lt. Col. Mark Wright, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday. "We are doing everything within our power to assist Pakistan in improving its counterinsurgency capability."

This year the Pentagon plans to spend more than $500 million on arms and equipment for Islamabad as well as training Pakistan's military in counterinsurgency tactics. Still, Pakistani officials last month complained that Congress attached too many conditions to the surge in aid.

Before flying to Lahore from Islamabad, Clinton visited the Bari Imam shrine, named after Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi, a 17th century Sufi saint who died in 1705 and later came to be known as the patron saint of Islamabad. A suicide bomber struck the shrine in May 2005, killing a number of people.