Thaindian News

By Arun Kumar
Washington, Jan 22 (IANS) With Al Qaeda pushed into Pakistan’s tribal areas, Islamabad risks slipping into radical hands as it was already home to the terrorist group’s leadership, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned Friday.

“We know that Pakistan matters not just because it is the location for the Afghanistan Taliban leadership; it is also important in its own right,” he said in a special appearance appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“It’s the base for Al Qaeda, it is a nuclear weapons state with the long-term risk of radicalisation,” Miliband said in his testimony on “Civilian strategy for Afghanistan” ahead of the London conference on Afghanistan Jan 28.

“With Al Qaeda pushed out into Pakistan’s tribal areas, the original rationale for the war in Afghanistan - to ensure the country is not a safe haven again for Al Qaeda and global terrorism - has come under scrutiny,” Miliband said.

“We know too that Al Qaeda senior leadership is based on the Pakistan side of the border. That does not, in my view, invalidate the campaign in Afghanistan. What it does is emphasise the interdependence between stability in Afghanistan and stability in Pakistan,” he said.

“We do not conflate or confuse Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” Miliband said. “But the symbiosis of the Taliban and Al Qaeda senior leadership, and the history of Al Qaeda organisation in Afghanistan, explain why we continue to see the war in Afghanistan as critical to the fight against Al Qaeda,” Miliband said.

“We also know that 70 percent of the terrorist plots that are aimed at the United Kingdom can trace their links back to the badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border. So we have a very clear national security interest there,” he argued.

“We know from the 1990s that Afghanistan is the incubator of choice for global jihad for Al Qaeda.

“The 1,600 mile Afghan border with Pakistan, the presence of Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan’s border areas, and the links between the two countries means that their stability needs to be addressed together.”

Miliband said: “The definition of success is clear: it is not to kill or capture every member of the Taliban. It is to ensure the government of Afghanistan is able to secure its territory against a weakened insurgency, and deny Al Qaeda the space to operate.”