The new director of the CIA held high-level talks in Pakistan after a provincial leader warned against expanding US missile strikes on al-Qaeda and Taliban targets inside the country’s thinly policed border with Afghanistan.
Leon Panetta arrived in Pakistan on Saturday on his first overseas trip since taking office as the Obama administration seeks a strategy to turn around the faltering war against Taliban militants in neighboring Afghanistan.
The US is concerned that political turmoil in Pakistan is distracting its government and army from combating Islamist insurgents threatening the stability of the nuclear-armed country and the surrounding region.
Panetta arrived from New Delhi, where Indian officials said they discussed the November terrorist attack in Mumbai, which has been blamed on a Pakistan-based militant group.
In a meeting with the CIA chief on Saturday evening, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani stressed the need to resolve his country’s 60-year dispute with India over the divided Kashmir region so that Pakistan can “singularly focus its attention on eradicating the menaces of extremism and terrorism,” Gilani’s office said in a statement.
Panetta expressed satisfaction with bilateral cooperation and said Washington was urgently lining up more economic assistance for Pakistan, as well as equipment and training for its security forces, it said.
In a sign of US frustration at Islamabad’s failure to eradicate militant safe havens, unmanned aircraft operated by the CIA are believed to have carried out dozens of missile attacks in Pakistan’s wild tribal regions since last year.
US officials say the missile attacks have killed several senior figures in al-Qaeda, which Washington worries is plotting new Sept. 11-style attacks in the West and have significantly weakened the terror network’s organization.
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The Russian minister of foreign affairs warned the US, South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited the ally country for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday in Wonsan City, North Korea, where he met North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim during the meeting reaffirmed his government’s commitment to “unconditionally support and encourage all measures” taken by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. Pyongyang and Moscow share identical views on “all strategic issues in
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The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
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