Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, would be heading to Pakistan and Afghanistan to make it clear that America's strategy in the region would not change, a day after President Barack Obama nominated General David Petraeus as his new war commander in Afghanistan.
United States special envoy Richard Holbrooke on Wednesday met National Security Adviser M K Narayanan in New Delhi. According to reports, the two discussed how India could help Washington's strategy aimed at ending terror threats emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan.Holbrooke, the special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was accompanied by Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen.Holbrooke is also meeting Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon.
Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Islamabad to hold consultations with in Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
A top United States military commander has warned that it would be "dangerous" to abandon Pakistan now as he feared this would lead to instability in the region witnessed in the 1990s. Admitting that US-Pakistan relations were going through "pretty rough times", Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "I think the worst thing we could do would be cut them off," BBC reported. Mullen feared it would be a repeat of the instability in the 1990s.
While a section of Pakistani media has termed the visit of Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Pakistan as an effort to revive the complex relations between the two countries, the US official further put Pakistan into trouble when he blamed the latter's intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence for contacts with the Haqqani Network.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, on Friday said that there can be no solution to the conflict in Afghanistan without Pakistan.
Apparently upset with their remarks over alleged link between Inter Services Intelligence, Taliban and Al-Qaeda, the Pakistani spy agency chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha refused to meet visiting US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and American military commander Admiral Mike Mullen.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the United States joint chiefs of staff, just days before his retirement, has made yet another scathing indictment of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence's perfidy. The spy agency maintains proxies like the Haqqani network for its own strategic depth in Afghanistan, he said.
Former US National Security Advisor James Jones has said that he was the intermediary who delivered to former military chief Admiral Mike Mullen a secret memorandum that businessman Mansoor Ijaz purportedly drafted on behalf of the Pakistan government.
Resolving the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan is key to stability in South Asia, where all terror groups including the Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Jaish-e-Muhammed are "working much more closely together" now than a year ago, top US military commander Mike Mullen has said.
Amid growing global concerns over Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling in the hands of the Taliban, the top United States military official on Monday said it remains a "strategic concern" but the atomic arsenal of Islamabad are secure as of now.
Welcoming India's decision to reduce troops from Jammu and Kashmir, a top US military official said on Tuesday that de-tensioning of that border was absolutely critical to the long-term stability of the region.
Sections in the US State Department and Pentagon have always felt more comfortable dealing with all powerful Pakistani generals instead of elected civilians, points out Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Acknowledging that India is a big player in the region, a top US military leader has said that the relationship between India and Pakistan is critical for the stability in the region.
Amid a controversy over a secret memo sent to the then United States military chief to prevent a possible military coup in Pakistan, the spokesperson of Admiral Mike Mullen said that the former top general never met the Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz and does not know him.
The US-Pak military ties are going through a 'very difficult time,' a top Pentagon official has conceded, but Washington is nowhere close to severing its ties with its longstanding ally.
Noting that Americans are pretty impatient, he said: "It's going to take a patience to return that relationship to the strong one that used to be there with a country that is really critical and vital in that part of the world and has its own challenges, the extremist and terrorist challenges... It's a very serious problem."
Al Qaeda remains "very capable" and focused on attacking the United States, a top American military official said on Sunday, adding the situation in Afghanistan is "serious" and "deteriorating" as the militants have found a "safe haven in Pakistan."
Welcoming President Barack Obama's new Afghan policy, the top US military commander said the decision to start withdrawing of troops from the war-torn country in 18 months is not an exit, but it is a strategy of transfer and transition.
Terming the Mumbai attacks as a new kind of terrorism, a top United States military officer said it differed from other such incidents as a group of 10 terrorists brought the two nuclear armed neighbours on the brink of a war. The Joint Chief of US Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who had visited New Delhi soon after the Mumbai attacks, was addressing a conference in Washington on "Global Trends and Security" on Thursday, organised by the Princeton University.
Voicing deep concern over "great synergy" among terror groups, top US military commander Mike Mullen has said that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which "fostered" Mumbai attacks, is associated with the Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and asserted India has a role to play in bringing stability to the region.
The Pentagon on Tuesday said it had shared with Pakistan in recent years the indications of Islamabad's "complicity" with extremist groups, renewing top United States commander Admiral Mike Mullen's allegations that Inter-Services Intelligence was conniving with the Haqqani network in Afghanistan.
The 'double-dealing' of the U.S. and Pakistani army - all with the ambition of military dominance - has significantly aided various terrorist groups. After 26/11, there is no place to hide for the Mike Mullens and countless others who have been apologists for the Pakistan army and the state it controls.
The already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan further deteriorated when Admiral Mike Mullen on Thursday accused the Inter-Services Intelligence agency for supporting the Haqqani network in planning and executing an assault on the US embassy in Afghanistan.
Pakistan on Friday reacted strongly to United States military Chief Admiral Mike Mullen's comments that it had "sanctioned" the killing of journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, describing his remarks as "extremely irresponsible".
The war of words between Pakistan and the United States on the Inter-Services Intelligence's alleged links with the Haqqani terror network escalated on Friday with Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani describing US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen's accusations as "not based on facts".
Top US military commander has said that any links, if they exist, between Pakistan's military intelligence and militant outfits were "completely unacceptable".
Pakistan and its leaders consider India as an existential threat to them not terrorism or Afghanistan, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said, noting that Islamabad needs to do more in the war against terrorism.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterated on Tuesday that the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons is not under any threat in spite of the current political crisis in that country. Mullen added that President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency didn't have any significant impact on the US-led global war on terror in Afghanistan.
The United States will not stop its drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, President Barack Obama's top military officer has said, according to a report.
America's top military official arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday for consultations with Pakistan's civil and military leadership in the wake of tension with India following the terror attacks in Mumbai.
Distancing himself from former United States Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Mike Mullen's remark about the Inter-Services Intelligence-Haqqani network links, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said Pakistan has been asked to take action against the Haqqani network.
"I also believe India plays an important role here (in Afghanistan)," Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff told media persons at the Washington Foreign Press Centre, in response to question on role of regional countries in Afghanistan.
'I think it's really important that we work as hard as we can with each other, and that any kind of public accusations or public finger pointing, quite frankly, that does not serve any of us well. That doesn't mean we won't have disagreements. But I hope that we can do that privately, and not publicly,' The Dawn quoted Mullen, as saying.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who just couldn't stop praising Pakistani Army General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani , told Congress Thursday that Kayani has purged the so-called 'rogue' elements from the ISI who are in cahoots with the Taliban.
The Al Qaeda network is not located in Afghanistan, but clearly headquartered in Pakistan, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen told Congress Thursday, and warned that if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan again, it would mean the return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan to plan and plot attacks against the US reminiscent of 9/11.
"He (Zawahiri) and his organisation still threaten us. As we did both seek to capture and kill and succeed in killing bin Laden, we certainly do or will do the same thing with Zawahiri," Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told media persons at a Pentagon news conference.
In a bid to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan, United States on Monday rushed its top Army official to Islamabad, to hold discussions with the country's political leadership. US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen arrived in Islamabad today on an unscheduled visit, second after the November 26 terror strikes in Mumbai that killed more than 180 people. Mullen met Pakistani national security advisor Mehmood Ali Durrani shortly after his arrival.
In his first briefing for the new year on the United States National Security Strategy Update, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, while replying to a query, blurted out that Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism in the world.
Observing that Pakistan is a "critical country" for the US in the long run, a top American General has said Washington wants to have a long-term partnership with Islamabad.
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