US calls Pak, Afghanistan frontier areas key points to win war on terror

Lahore, June 2 : US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has reportedly said that the frontier areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan were the 'most pressing points' where the US must win its war on terror.

According to a BBC report, Chertoff said that successes against Al Qaeda (in Iraq) should not lead to a weakening of the resolve (to win the war on terror in these two areas).

Addressing Oxford University students during his visit to the UK, Chertoff said that 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".

On the occasion, he also questioned if 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.

He claimed that there was no specific intelligence now of an imminent attack from Qaeda. "[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, and added: "They are looking for people who can operate freely and inconspicuously in Western society."

Chertoff said he saw no point in trying to negotiate with Al Qaeda. "Nobody wants to negotiate their own demise or their own surrender, so it strikes me as a kind of academic exercise," he said and added that Qaeda's ideology was one of total antagonism toward democracy and other religions.

ANI