India will launch air strikes if Pakistan does not act fast: McCain

Lahore, Dec.7 (ANI): Suggesting that there is enough evidence of former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officers involvement in the planning and execution of last week's terror attacks in Mumbai, Arizona Senator and Republican presidential candidate in 2008 John McCain has warned that if Pakistan does not act fast to arrest them, India will conduct air strikes on select targets in Pakistan.

McCain, who arrived in Pakistan Friday from New Delhi with Senators Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, told a select group of Pakistanis and reporters at an informal lunch in Lahore that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was visibly angry about the killings and damage to property in Mumbai.

"The democratic government of India is under pressure and it will be a matter of days after they have given the evidence to Pakistan to use the option of force if Islamabad fails to act against the terrorists," the Daily Times quoted him, as saying.

To a question about what the United States would do in the event of India carrying out such a threat, McCain said Washington would not be able to do much, even though every effort would be made to dissuade New Delhi from doing so".

"We were angry after 9/11. This is India's 9/11. We cannot tell India not to act when that is what we did, asking the Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden to avoid a war and waging one when they refused to do so," McCain said.

He accepted that Pakistan could respond to such an Indian attack, but reiterated that the threat to the former on this score is very real.

McCain later met Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in Islamabad before proceeding to Kabul. (ANI)