US fully backing Pakistani push in tribal area

WASHINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) The United States is fully backing a projected Pakistani military crackdown in an area important for al Qaeda and Taliban militants, President George W Bush's national security adviser said today.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's 10-month peace deal with tribal fighters in northwestern Pakistan has not helped marginalize their foreign allies, said Stephen Hadley.

"It has not worked the way he wanted. It has not worked the way we wanted it," Hadley said on the ABC program "This Week." Musharraf was moving more troops into the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, Hadley said in a round of television interviews.

"We are supporting that effort in order to get control of the situation," he told ABC. "We have provided all appropriate support that we can consistent with Pakistani sovereignty," he added on CNN's "Late Edition." Hadley, Bush's chief adviser on national security, said Taliban safe havens in Pakistan were a threat to both Musharraf's government and the United States.

"There is pooling of Taliban there. There is training, and there are operations," Hadley said on Fox News. Musharraf "has taken actions against them but the action has at this point not been adequate, not effective." "We are urging him to do more and we are providing our full support to what he's contemplating." Pro-Taliban militants in the area today called off the peace deal signed in September after accusing Pakistani authorities of violating the pact.

Under the pact, Pakistan agreed to stop military operations against the militants in return for their pledge that they would not send fighters across the border into Afghanistan and would not launch attacks on Pakistan's army.

A militant leadership council said it was dropping the deal because Pakistani forces had launched several attacks on them and the government had deployed more troops in the region. (Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen) REUTERS AGL KN2116