Obama says Pakistan must act against Taliban

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said today the United States must be willing to strike al Qaeda targets in Pakistan with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.

Obama's tough stance comes amid a debate in Washington over what to do about a resurgent al Qaeda and Taliban in areas of Pakistan that President Pervez Musharraf has been unable to halt, and concerns that new recruits are being trained there for a September 11-style attack against the United States.

''If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will,'' Obama said.

Obama, a senator from Illinois, said in remarks prepared for delivery that if elected in November 2008, he would make hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid to Pakistan conditional.

''I would make our conditions clear, Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan,'' Obama said.

Obama also criticized President George W Bush's emphasis on al Qaeda in Iraq and said as president he would end the war in Iraq and refocus efforts on the al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

''The president would have us believe that every bomb in Baghdad is part of al Qaeda's war against us, not an Iraqi civil war. He elevates al Qaeda in Iraq - which didn't exist before our invasion - and overlooks the people who hit us on 9/11, who are training new recruits in Pakistan,'' Obama said.

He said that ''because of a war in Iraq that should never have been authorized and should never have been waged, we are now less safe than we were before 9/11.'' REUTERS RN VV1931