US urges Pak to strike back to counter terror

Bagram Air Base (Pakistan), May 27 : A senior US security officer has said that Pakistan should strike back at "terrorism", else it would continue to see more attacks like the one that killed ex-premier Benazir Bhutto in December last year.

US Homeland Security Head Michael Chertoff said last evening that extremists in Pakistan were a "threat to that country as well as Afghanistan".

He was replying to a question about Islamabad's peace talks with pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked rebels which have raised concern in NATO and Kabul.

"And, it was important for the Pakistan government to see that it ensures control and strikes back against terrorism. Otherwise, they're going to see more of the kind of tragedies that they saw when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated or some of the bombings we've seen in the last several months in Pakistan and here in Afghanistan as well," The News quoted him as saying while talking to reporters at the US military base at Bagram.

Chertoff was at the Air Base for a ceremony to award US citizenship to 44 troops from 12 countries serving in Washington's "war on terror", said the paper.

The Secretary also said there had been progress in the fight against Islamic extremists. However determination was still needed to "push back against the enemy that is still trying to re-establish itself in some parts of Afghanistan, still threatening the young democracy we have here," he added.

ANI