US pressing Pak to act against LeT: Clinton

The US is persistently asking Pakistan to take action against LeT that carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks,Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said but was non-committal on including this in the American scorecard on Islamabad as sought by a Congressional committee.

Clinton said the US would continue to press Pakistan over its failure to bring to book those responsible for 26/11 attacks but any move to link this action to aid needed consideration. “I do not want to commit at this time to taking such a path because I think it’s important that there be further consideration of all of the implications,” Clinton said at a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan Thursday. “Every time we meet with the Pakistanis,we press them on LeT about the continuing failure,in our view,to fulfil all of the requirements necessary for prosecution related to the Mumbai attacks and we will continue to do so,” she said.

Clinton was responding to a question from influential Congressman Ed Royce,who is also the co-chair of the India Caucus in the House of Representatives.

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Meanwhile,the Pakistani military has told the Pentagon that it does not have the capacity to take action against the Haqqani network,a US military General based in Afghanistan said. “The Pakistanis have said to me that they simply don’t have the capacity at this time to take on that insurgent network at this point within their borders,” Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti told Pentagon reporters in a video conference from Kabul.

Scaparrotti is the Commander of International Security Assistance Force Joint Command. “We are working with them to determine how best to have an impact inside of that sanctuary. We work very hard on our side to affect them in terms of interdiction,their cache and the movement cross border,” he said.