Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday the US was so deeply involved in joint operations with Pakistan to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaeda militants that it had to take some of the blame when missions failed.
Pakistan has deployed thous-ands of troops along its long, porous border with Afghanistan to hunt Taliban militants from Afghanistan's former regime and the al-Qaeda network blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
But there is opposition in Pakistan's Pashtun-dominated border regions to the crackdown and some critics allege rogue elements in the Pakistani military spy service -- the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) -- sympathize with the Taliban.
Musharraf said the border region was so inhospitable that Pakistan needed high-technology intelligence devices to help intercept communications by cell phones and computers.
"Pakistan has no such de-vices. We are being assisted by intelligence agencies from next door to here, from the United States," said Musharraf, adding that Washington was also supplying unmanned Predator drones for aerial surveillance.
"So if anyone is failing, if the ISI which is being maligned as failing, then so are the intelligence agencies on this side because this intelligence operation is being conducted jointly," he said in a speech to the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies.
Pakistan, a key ally in Washington's war on terror, has arrested hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. But al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Omar are still free despite suspicions they are in the border region.
Islamabad also faces growing accusations from officials of the US-backed government in Afghanistan that it has allowed Taliban guerrillas to regroup in Pakistan and orchestrate attacks on US and Afghan forces.
RSS