WASHINGTON : United States Army general Lieutenant General Austin Millerhas said that he considers Pakistan as a part of resolution of Afghanistanissue.Responding to the questions during Senate Armed Services Committee meeting onTuesday, Miller said that Pakistan has an important role in not onlydiplomatic matters but for security purpose as well, Bloomberg reported.
Miller said Pakistan has made “many sacrifices” and “its security forceshave fought bravely,” but “we have not yet seen these counterterrorismefforts against anti-Pakistan militants translate into definitive actionsagainst Afghan Taliban or Haqqani leaders residing in Pakistan.”news articlesSecret Offers Expire Soon! Click Here Now To Find!
Trump has been equally vocal in the past about Pakistan, saying in Augustthat “we can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terroristorganizations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to theregion.”
A United States Army general has expressed dissatisfaction with Pakistan’scounter-terrorism efforts, calling the country’s actions “contradictory”.
Lieutenant General Austin Miller, US President Donald Trump’s nominee tolead allied forces in the 17-year-old Afghan war, told the Senate ArmedServices Committee on Tuesday that the biggest challenge to stabilisingAfghanistan remains the militant sanctuaries in Pakistan.
“We should have high expectations that they [Pakistan] are part of thesolution, not just diplomatically but from a security standpoint as well,”he said, as reported by Bloomberg.
The 57-year old military veteran, who as a captain led a ground assaultduring the October 1993 “Black Hawk Down” operation in Mogadishu, Somalia,is now head of the Joint Special Operations Command, the unit of elite UScommando forces conducting counter terror operations in Afghanistan.
He has been tasked with executing the Trump-backed Pentagon strategy thatabandons any public timeline for withdrawing about 14,000 US troops andassigns them to work more closely to train and assist Afghan troops.
Trump has, in the past, also accused Pakistan of harbouring “agents ofchaos” and providing safe havens to militant groups waging an insurgencyagainst a US-backed government in Kabul.
Pakistan estimates there have been 70,000 casualties in militant attacks,including 17,000 martyred, since it joined the US “war on terrorism” afterthe September 11, 2001, attacks.