Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has said that Pakistan is using US aid meant for the war on terror to “prepare for a war against India”. He will hold Islamabad accountable for these massive funds and increase pressure to bust terrorist safe havens if he becomes President, Obama said on Fox News.

“What we can do is stay focused on Afghanistan and put more pressure on the Pakistanis,” Obama said, adding the US was providing Pakistan military aid “without having enough strings attached”.

“So they’re using the military aid... Pakistan... They’re preparing for a war against India.

“What we say is, look, we’re going to provide them with additional military support, targeted at terrorists, and we’re going to help build their democracy.... We’ve wasted 10 billion dollars with Musharraf without holding them accountable for knocking out those safe havens.”

Obama said he would follow Osama bin Laden to the “gates of hell” — and though “nobody talked about some full-blown invasion of Pakistan, we’ve got to put more pressure on Pakistan to do what they need to do.”

Obama has consistently held a tough line on Pakistan. In August 2007, he had kicked up a storm by advocating anti-al Qaeda strikes inside Pakistan, even without Islamabad’s consent. “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will,” he had said.

Obama had argued that by waging war in Iraq and not going after the terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan, President George W. Bush was “confusing” the mission against terror. “The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he had said.