Two top United States security officials are traveling to Pakistan on Tuesday to meet the country's civil and military leadership and press for more aggressive action against Al Qaeda-allied groups. Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta and the National Security Advisor General James Jones, who are embarking on a visit to Islamabad, will meet President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, Army Chief General Ashfaq Kiyani.
Enhanced co-operation between India and the United States on tackling terrorism particularly in South Asia and Pakistan's role in the region, dominated the deliberations of the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram with top officials of Obama Administration today.
What needs to be understood is that not one, but three cancers afflict Pakistan
US President Barack Obama would hold his sixth Situation Room meeting with his national security team on Monday to discuss his administrations strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi would co-chair the first US-Pak Strategic Dialogue to be held in Washington on March 24.
The independent task force set up last year included Richard Holbrooke, the Special US Representatives for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and General James Jones, National Security Advisor. But both of them stepped down from the task force before the first draft was written, and as such they are not associated with the report, it says.
Amid conflict reports on pulling out its troops from Afghanistan, the US made it clear that it has no intention of leaving the war-torn country in the near future and "certainly not in 2011".
The retired American general who delivered an alleged memo that sought United States help to stave off a feared coup in Pakistan has said that he believes the document was "not credible".
Some terror camps in Pakistan have reinitiated operations against India which has conveyed its worries over United States military aid to Pakistan finding its way to terrorists, Army Chief Deepak Kapoor has told top American official, according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.
The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda and wants its army to pursue the militants into north Waziristan.
'The real purpose of President Obama writing to President Zardari,' Husain Haqqani tells Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa, 'was to seek a turnaround on terrorism -- that Pakistan, whatever its grievances, cannot have jihadi groups operating openly on its soil.'