US will maintain 'unrelenting' pressure on terrorist havens on Af-Pak border

Islamabad, Aug 6 (ANI): The US Government must fundamentally redefine the struggle against terrorism, replacing the war on terror with a campaign combining all facets of national power to defeat the enemy, President Obama's senior counter-terrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, has said.

Previewing what aides said will be the Obama Administration's most comprehensive statement to date on its long-term strategy to defeat al-Qaeda and other violent extremists worldwide, Brennan said the US will maintain "unrelenting" pressure on terrorist havens, including those near the Afghan-Pakistani border, in Yemen and in Somalia.

However, Washington must couple the military strikes that have depleted al-Qaeda's middle ranks with more sustained use of economic, diplomatic and cultural levers to diminish Islamist radicalization, he said.

"It needs to be much more than a kinetic effort, an intelligence, law enforcement effort. It has to be much more comprehensive," said Brennan.

"This is not a 'war on terror.' . . . We cannot let the terror prism guide how we're going to interact and be involved in different parts of the world," The Nation quotede him, as saying.

The US shift in tone comes as Obama national security officials, six months after taking office, are seeking to maintain a fragile bipartisan consensus over continuing Bush-era policies that damaged al-Qaeda while taking advantage of changed political circumstances at home and perceptions abroad. (ANI)