Feb
25
Holbrooke praised Pakistan-US cooperation on Taliban
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The renewed collaboration between the U.S. and Pakistan led to recent successes against the Taliban, among them account capture second in command of the group, said Thursday the special envoy of the White House to the region.
Hours after the arrival of the envoy Richard Holbrooke to Islamabad, a bomb in a village in the Khyber area on the Afghan-Pakistan left 30 people dead, underscoring the fragile security environment in the region.
Among the dead was a commander of a militant faction that does not belong to the main Taliban alliance in Pakistan, security officials said, adding that th1000e blast appeared to be the result of factional rivalry.
Holbrooke praised the capture of top Taliban military strategist Afghan Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar this month, which came as U.S. forces comandan a major NATO offensive against the group.
“It is very significant in itself. Very significant,” Holbrooke told reporters. “It represents another peak for the Pakistani and U.S. collaboration.
Baradar was arrested in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in an attack by Pakistani and U.S. agents. Baradar is the most senior Taliban commander arrested in Pakistan.
Pakistan, an important U.S. ally, Taliban battle against their native and has taken little action against the Afghan Taliban operating from its territory and not face the Pakistani state.
Pakistani Taliban movement supported by Al Qaeda, which is freely associated with the Taliban Afghans launched a series of bombings in Pakistan in retaliation for offensives their strongholds.
Holbrooke made his eighth trip to Pakistan in a year, and in a sign of warmer relations, plans to return next month with Admiral Mike Mullen, chief of U.S. Joint Staff.
Also on Thursday, a suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles into Pakistani border region of North Waziristan, which left three militants dead, Pakistani officials said.
United States increased attacks against militants drones in Pakistan, and has developed 15 missions this year, which compares with 51 last year to 32, 2008, as a Reuters count.
United States has pressured Pakistan to act against militants. However, the Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said the arrest of Baradar not due to U.S. pressure but the sincerity of their fight against terrorism.
“If think that Pakistan is deploying some 100,000 troops on the western frontier under pressure, if they think that we are conducting military operations in Pakistan under pressure, that”s the wrong impression, “he told Reuters in Belgium.
(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider and Robert Birsel, William Maclean in Brussels, Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul and Phil Stewart, and Sue Pleming in Washington, editing by Jill Serjeant Spanish)