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‘US threatened to attack Swat Taliban if Pakistan failed to act’

* Sunday Times claims ISI asked Taliban to withdraw from Buner under American pressure

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: The United States made it clear last week that it would attack the Taliban in Swat valley unless the Pakistani government stopped their advance.

A senior Pakistani official told The Times newspaper, the American government intervened after Taliban moved in Buner.

In Washington, officials feared that the country pivotal to the US war in Afghanistan and against Al Qaeda was succumbing to extremists.

“The implicit threat – if you don’t do it, we may have to – was always there,” said the official. He said that under American pressure, the ISI agency told the Taliban on Friday to withdraw from Buner.

However, the Taliban withdrawal was less than total.

The official said the ‘mortal threat’ remarks by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, were “calculated to ramp up the pressure on Pakistan” to take action. She was one of several American political and military leaders to use unusually strong language about Pakistan’s failure to curb the Taliban. Others included Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and General David Petraeus.

Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador in Washington, then accused the Obama administration of making it harder for his country to fight the Taliban.

“The US needs to relate its comments to the ground realities in Pakistan instead of the mood in Washington,” he said. “Most Pakistanis are not supportive of the Taliban way of life, but at the same time widespread anti-Americanism confuses many Pakistanis into having a conflicting view. We want to turn that view around but the US and its leaders must help us to do that.”

The Americans want the government to shift troops from the India-Pakistan border to meet the Taliban threat, The Times said.

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