US fears Taliban gains in Pakistan
Views cease-fire as Al Qaeda opening
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Views cease-fire as Al Qaeda opening
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WASHINGTON - Top US officials are increasingly concerned about Pakistan's ability to confront the Taliban, who appear emboldened by the government's decision to cede a large part of its territory to the armed Islamic militants.
Weeks after a cease-fire in the northwest Swat Valley gave the Taliban free rein to impose Sharia religious law, Pakistani officials reported yesterday that the Taliban were extending their presence to an adjacent district known as Buner, just 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad. US officials fear the tribal border areas with Afghanistan could be a base for Al Qaeda to plot further attacks against the United States.
The Swat Valley cease-fire is jeopardizing the central government's ability to stop infiltration into other parts of the country and is allowing the Taliban to operate with virtual impunity in the Afgahn border area, where their followers are stepping up attacks against American and Afghan troops, warned Army General David Petraeus.
"There are concerns in many of the political communities within Pakistan, and they're all looking very hard at what the im plications of the agreement in Swat will be long-term. . . . That threat is significant," Petraeus, the top US commander in the region, told reporters after a speech at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government on Tuesday evening.
Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, testifying for the first time before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the "existential threat" posed by Taliban extremists in Pakistan should not be underestimated, painting the picture of a nuclear-armed state that is in danger of collapsing.
"Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of Americans and the world," said Clinton, who asserted that the Pakistani government is "basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists" with the cease-fire, which was approved by Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari.
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