Washington: Two missile strikes targetting suspected terrorists hideouts inside Pakistan in the first few days of his presidency indicates that new US President Barack Obama is going to be tough on Islamabad, when it comes to the war against terror, media reports said.
This is the first tangible sign of President Obama's commitment to sustained military pressure on the terrorists groups there, even though the Pakistanis broadly oppose such unilateral US actions, The Washington Post reported today.
Throughout his election campaign, Obama maintained that his administration would not hesitate from going ahead with unilateral strikes against high value targets inside Pakistan if it had actionable intelligence, even if this was opposed by Islamabad.
US missile attacks kill 20 in Pakistan
In a page one report, The Washington Post said though President Asif Ali Zardari has expressed hopes of a very warm relationship with the new administration, Obama's national security team has already "telegraphed their intention to make firmer demands of Islamabad than the Bush administration".
This demand would be backed up with a threatened curtailment of the plentiful military aid that has been at the heart of US-Pakistani ties for the past three decades, it said.
'Pakistan has become ground zero for terrorist threat'
"The separate strikes on two compounds, coming three hours apart and involving five missiles fired from Afghanistan-based Predator drones were the first high-profile hostile military actions taken under Obama's four-day-old presidency," The Post said.
In an interview to CNN, the former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday said that such air strikes have made the US unpopular.
Source: http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14844261
No comments:
Post a Comment