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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Top US military commander has said that any links, if they exist, between Pakistan's military intelligence and militant outfits were "completely unacceptable".
The United States has sent its top defence official to India to find out the culprit behind the Mumbai terror attacks that had claimed over 200 lives, including Americans, last week.Defence Secretary Robert Gates has confirmed that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen is on his way to India or already there."But the truth is most of the people who were killed were Indians. And so it's important that we find out who did it," he said.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Apparently Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan's youngest and first female foreign minister, has had it with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen's incessant indictments of Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence.
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.
United States President Barack Obama on Thursday evaded a question about whether he would be willing to cut off all assistance to Pakistan in the wake of allegations by recently retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen that the Haqqani network is a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence.
Holding that there was every possibility of recent US military aid to Pakistan being used against India, the government said on Monday that it would provide all assistance to the armed forces to protect every inch of its territory.
Pakistan has offered to play a central role in resolving the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and hold talks with the Taliban. Pakistan's proposal is likely to be discussed when National Security Adviser General James L Jones visits Islamabad later this week, says the report. United States has reacted cautiously to Pakistan's renewed interest in seeking dialogue with the Taliban.
A top United States military official on Friday said that the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership are trying to gain access to nuclear weapons.
Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor has arrived in Washington on a week-long visit to the United States, during which he is expected to hold discussions with top US military leadership on a wide range of bilateral issues, besides the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. General Kapoor is scheduled to meet Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, his counterpart in the US Army General George W Casey and Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
In an interview to CBS Face the Nation, Chairman of America's Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said Pakistan Army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is focused on both -- the threat from India and that from internal insurgency.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that Washington's leverage with Pakistan to go after the Haqqani network, which has been killing US soldiers and is responsible for the attack on the US embassy in Kabul, was limited.
Describing the increasing Indo-US military cooperation as "positive", a top Pentagon official said the growing defence links reflects the continuing and emerging relationship between the two nations.
Special United States Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, who was once speculated to be US President Obama's trouble-shooter to Kashmir, is so sensitive to creating an uproar in New Delhi if he speaks about Kashmir, that he doesn't even want to say the 'K word.'
A top US military commander on Wednesday admitted that its forces in Afghanistan have been "under-resourced", and underlined the "urgency" for a change in its strategy to fight insurgency in the troubled country.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was so scared of a military coup after Osama bin Laden's death that he was ready to create a "new security team" favourable to Americans and promised the US to hand over Pakistan-based 26/11 perpetrators including those from its intelligence agency to India.
The US defence department chose to sidestep queries on whether it had the authority to carry out unilateral action against Taliban or al Qaeda leadership on Pakistani soil but pressed Islamabad to "move rapidly" against the militants in its restive tribal areas.
In a damning indictment, a top United States General has said the Inter Services Intelligence is fomenting 'chaotic activity' in Kashmir and Afghanistan and asked the Pakistani spy agency to change its 'strategic thrust'. The US is having 'discussions' with the Pakistani leadership on this issue, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. Elaborating, he said the ISI has been supporting militant groups in Kashmir and FATA in Afghanistan.
Describing India as a strong partner, a top United States military officer has said that Washington has not asked New Delhi to do 'more' in war-ravaged Afghanistan. At a press conference, the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said that US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had not conveyed to India to 'do more' during his recent visit.Gates had visited India in February and met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Describing the steps taken by Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks as great, a top Pentagon official has held that many more such steps would be taken by Islamabad.The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has said that there is a strong desire for justice on the part of the people of India and he is 'grateful for the restraint shown by the country'.
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.
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