'99.6 per cent is occupied by Arab countries in the Middle East; Israel occupies just 0.4 per cent of the entire Middle East.' 'That 0.4 per cent is also a big issue for them.'
The Obama administration's point man for counterterrorism, Daniel Benjamin, has said that America's relationship with Pakistan "is very complex," even as Congress has said its patience with Islamabad "is wearing thin."
"I have not seen any decrease in Lashkar-e Tayiba's strength. It continues to be a matter of great concern to us, and I've spoken on many occasions about the threat to stability in South Asia that LeT poses," the Ambassador at Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Daniel Benjamin, told reporters in Washington.
The Barack Obama administration's Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State Daniel Benjamin, in an interaction with rediff.com on Wednesday, has admitted that the social services the Lashkar-e-Tayiba delivers through its front organisations like Jamat-ud-Dawah make the terror outfit even more insidious and dangerous.
A European terror plot still remains active and the US has asked its citizens travelling in Europe to take more precautions, a top State Department's counter-terrorism official said on Thursday.
The 'trust deficit' between the United States and Pakistan has seemingly evaporated after the strategic dialogue between Washington and Islamabad in March, that also featured Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and Inter Services Intelligence director general Shujat Ahmad Pasha.If the remarks of Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism are anything to go by, the US no longer is suspicious of Pakistan playing a double game.
Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, coordinator for counter-terrorism at the United States department of state, has made it abundantly clear that his office will not influence law enforcement authorities via any diplomatic lobbying to provide India with direct access to Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley. Pakistani-American Headley was part of the conspiracy for the horrific terror attacks that shook Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and left 166 people dead.
With India requesting for higher-level training from the United States in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the Obama administration has asked the Congress to double its anti-terrorism budget to India to $ 4.5 million for the fiscal 2011.
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