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America pinpoints frontier areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan for terror war

* US Homeland Security secretary says no specific intelligence of imminent Qaeda attack

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Washington has pinpointed the frontier areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan as the most pressing points in which to win the war on terror, according to a BBC report released on Sunday.

United States Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the BBC that successes against Al Qaeda should not lead to a weakening of resolve. Addressing Oxford University students during his visit to the UK, Chertoff said extremists had “hijacked the language of Islam to mask an ideology that in some respects has more in common with the fascist organisations of the 1930s”.

He questioned whether Pakistan’s rulers had the right strategy to respond, the report said.

Chertoff claimed the US had succeeded in pushing back Al Qaeda-in-Iraq and argued that Muslims in Iraq were now reacting against indiscriminate militant violence.

No imminence: While the threat from Al Qaeda remained global, he said, there was no specific intelligence now of an imminent attack. “[Al Qaeda] are using their platform in the frontier areas of Pakistan to train operatives, including operatives who don’t fit what perhaps the public believes is the normal profile of a terrorist,” he said.

“They are looking for people who can operate freely and inconspicuously in Western society,” he said, adding that the “jury was still out” on the strategy of Pakistan’s new democratic government to combat the militants.

In a television interview with Sky News, Chertoff said he saw no point in trying to negotiate with Al Qaeda, AP reported. “Nobody wants to negotiate their own demise or their own surrender, so it strikes me as a kind of academic exercise,” he said, adding that Al Qaeda’s ideology was one of total antagonism toward democracy and other religions.

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