US lambasts Pak, says it fuels world terrorism

US lambasts Pak, says it fuels world terrorism
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW YORK, APRIL 30: The US State Department has admonished Islamabad for aiding and abetting terrorists in Kashmir and for the first time identified Pakistan and Afghanistan as a major hub of international terrorism providing safe haven and support to world terrorist groups.

However, it stopped short of listing Pakistan as states sponsoring terrorism saying, "It (Pakistan) is a friendly state that is trying to tackle the problem."

The New York Times quoted the latest annual report of the Department as saying Afghanistan also poses a "major terrorist threat" by, among other things, continuing to shelter the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, wanted in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa.

Pakistan, too, the report asserts, is sending "mixed messages" on terrorism by harbouring and aiding known terrorists, many fighting to "wrest control" of Kashmir from India.

Pakistan, the report says, while it has arrested and extradited several terrorists, it has refused to end support for groups that train terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan itself, and has declined to close "certain Pakistani religious schools that serve as conduits for terrorism."

There are also "credible reports", the report says, that Pakistan continues to support militant groups like the Harkat ul-Mujahedin, which had one of its leaders freed from an Indian prison in exchange for hostages of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane last year.

The New York Times said the State Department stopped short of adding either Pakistan or Afghanistan to its list of state sponsors, against whom a series of tough sanctions automatically apply.

Seven countries are on the department's list of nations that sponsor terrorism: Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Sudan and North Korea.

Michael Sheehan, the departments coordinator for counter-terrorism said Pakistan was not added because although its record badly needed improvement. "It is a friendly state that trying to tackle the problem," he said.

The paper had obtained a copy of the 107-page report ahead of its publication which is expected on Monday.

While the US has no diplomatic relations with Afghanistan, President Bill Clinton met briefly with Pakistan's military leader, Gen Pervez Musharraf, when he visited South Asia in March and discussed terrorism and the Kashmir issues, as well as Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons and when the general would return the country to a democratically elected government.

Little progress was reported on any of the issues.

Informed by the Times of the State Department report, Zamir Akram, the deputy chief of mission at Pakistan's embassy in Washington, "vigorously" denied that his country was supporting or tolerating terrorism.

"If they have evidence, they should share it with us," Akram said. "We are more of a target and victim of terrorism than the United States has even been. We need to jointly fight against terrorism. Charges like this simply get our backs up."

The report describes the administration's efforts to combat terrorism and also concludes that while Americans were once threatened primarily by terrorism sponsored by states, today they face greater threats from "loose networks" of groups and individuals motivated more by religion or ideology than by politics.

"Such a network supported the failed attempt to smuggle explosives material and detonating devices into Seattle in December," the report states, referring to the arrest of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian, and several others in connection with the with the alleged millennium bombing plot foiled last December.

The report also describes changing trends in terrorism, which it says is increasingly "religiously or ideologically motivated," as opposed to the "politically motivated" terrorism of the past.

The report also talks of a shift in the nature of from truck and car bombs to groups now seeking biological, nuclear, chemical and other "weapons of mass destruction," as well as practicing "cyber-terrorism."

Another shift, the report says, is geographic. The locus of terrorism is moving east "from the Middle East to South Asia, more specifically Afghanistan," as Middle Eastern governments strengthen their commitment to improve international cooperation in intelligence and law enforcement.

In Egypt, for the first time in years, the Times quotes the report as noting, there were no terrorist-related attacks, largely because of "successful counter terrorism efforts by the Egyptian government" and a cease-fire by the country's largest terrorist group.