Sunday, May 23, 2010
U.S. facing “tough fight” from al-Qaeda in Pak
From The Hindu
In a speech that unmistakably underscored the roots of numerous terror acts and networks in South Asia, particularly Pakistan, President Barack Obama on Saturday said, “We need intelligence agencies that work seamlessly with their counterparts to unravel plots that run from the mountains of Pakistan to the streets of our cities; law enforcement that can strengthen judicial systems abroad, and protect us at home.”
Speaking to cadets at the United States military academy at West Point, New York, Mr. Obama said that even as the war in Iraq came to an end, he had announced “a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan” which recognised that the U.S. faced “a tough fight” in the region.
Noting that militants fighting the U.S. there were turning to new tactics he said the Taliban had exemplified this through its use of “assassination, indiscriminate killing, and intimidation”.
He also said to the cadets that in the war against al-Qaeda, there would be “no simple moment of surrender to mark the journey’s end – no armistice or banner headline”.
Rather, he argued, the al-Qaeda “will continue to recruit, plot, and exploit our open society. We see that in bombs that go off in Kabul and Karachi. We see it in attempts to blow up an airliner over Detroit or an SUV in Times Square, even as these failed attacks show that pressure on networks like al-Qaeda is forcing them to rely on terrorists with less time and space to train”.
He said that while the al-Qaeda threat would not go away soon, the terror group and its affiliates were “small men on the wrong side of history”, leading no nation or religion.
In a speech that unmistakably underscored the roots of numerous terror acts and networks in South Asia, particularly Pakistan, President Barack Obama on Saturday said, “We need intelligence agencies that work seamlessly with their counterparts to unravel plots that run from the mountains of Pakistan to the streets of our cities; law enforcement that can strengthen judicial systems abroad, and protect us at home.”
Speaking to cadets at the United States military academy at West Point, New York, Mr. Obama said that even as the war in Iraq came to an end, he had announced “a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan” which recognised that the U.S. faced “a tough fight” in the region.
Noting that militants fighting the U.S. there were turning to new tactics he said the Taliban had exemplified this through its use of “assassination, indiscriminate killing, and intimidation”.
He also said to the cadets that in the war against al-Qaeda, there would be “no simple moment of surrender to mark the journey’s end – no armistice or banner headline”.
Rather, he argued, the al-Qaeda “will continue to recruit, plot, and exploit our open society. We see that in bombs that go off in Kabul and Karachi. We see it in attempts to blow up an airliner over Detroit or an SUV in Times Square, even as these failed attacks show that pressure on networks like al-Qaeda is forcing them to rely on terrorists with less time and space to train”.
He said that while the al-Qaeda threat would not go away soon, the terror group and its affiliates were “small men on the wrong side of history”, leading no nation or religion.
Labels: AfPak policy, Al-Qaeda, Barack Obama
# posted by Narayan Lakshman @ 9:20 AM 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
