Salon.com > Nahal Toosi

Clinton: Bin Laden raid a watershed for Pakistan

Fri, 27 May 2011 20:23:36 +0000

The killing of Osama bin Laden is a watershed moment for Pakistan's confrontation with homegrown terrorism, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday. She sought to patch relations rocked by knowledge that the terror mastermind lived for years in a country receiving billions in U.S. counter-terror aid and that the U.S. didn't trust its ally enough to alert Pakistani leaders that the raid was coming.

"We have reached a turning point" following the long hunt for bin Laden, Clinton said after intensive meetings in the Pakistani capital under tight security.

"It is up to the Pakistani people to choose what kind of country they wish to live in," Clinton said, "and it is up to the leaders of Pakistan to deliver results."

Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised Pakistan's stand against some militants and challenged its leaders to take decisive steps to jointly take on al-Qaida. Both the senior leadership of al-Qaida and the Taliban are thought to live in Pakistan, and affiliated militants use safe havens in Pakistan to attacks U.S. forces fighting next door in Afghanistan.

Clinton: Pakistan needs to take ‘decisive steps’

Fri, 27 May 2011 15:09:50 +0000

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that relations between the United States and Pakistan have reached a turning point after the killing of Osama bin Laden and she called on Islamabad to take "decisive steps" in the days ahead to fight terrorism.

Clinton made the remarks after meeting with Pakistani leaders on a seven-hour trip aimed at repairing ties badly damaged by the May 2 U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaida chief. A brief portion of the meetings witnessed by reporters was stiff and awkward, with no smiles among the U.S. delegation, and it was unclear how much, if any, progress was made.

Although she stressed that the U.S. won't abandon an alliance it considers critical to success in the war in Afghanistan and that both countries had shared interests, Clinton also criticized Pakistanis for propagating conspiracy theories and anti-American sentiment.

Pakistani officials are angry they were not told in advance of the raid against bin Laden, who was living in an army town not far from the capital, Islamabad. Parliament has passed resolutions condemning the U.S. incursion, and the U.S. has been asked to reduce the number of military personnel it has stationed in nuclear-armed Pakistan, which has become a nexus for Islamic extremism.

Gloom, fury as Pakistan death toll nears 100

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:35:00 +0000

Tribal elders in a Pakistani village where a suicide car bomber killed nearly 100 people insisted Saturday that residents will keep defying the Taliban, even as the bloodshed laid bare the risks facing the citizens' militias that make up a key piece of Pakistan's arsenal against extremism.

The New Year's Day attack on the northwest village of Shah Hasan Khel was one of the deadliest in a surge of bombings that has killed more than 600 across Pakistan since October. Police believe the attacker meant to detonate his 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of explosives at a meeting of tribesmen who supervise an anti-Taliban militia. Instead, the blast went off at a nearby outdoor volleyball court, killing at least 96 people.

The explosion leveled some three dozen mud-brick homes and covered the village with dust, smoke and the smell of burning flesh. On Saturday, numerous homes received visitors offering condolences, and funeral prayers were held. Many of the residents in the village of 5,000, which lies near Pakistan's militant-filled tribal belt, were too scared to name any possible culprits, but others were defiant.