Obama puts Pakistan at center of Al-Qaeda war

US President Barack Obama put Pakistan at the center of the fight against Al-Qaeda in unveiling a new strategy to commit thousands more troops and billions of dollars to the Afghan war.

Obama vowed to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" Osama bin Laden's group, which he said was plotting deadly new assaults against the United States more than seven years after the September 11 attacks.

He said he would plunge 4,000 more US troops on top of an already announced 17,000 into the "increasingly perilous" unfinished war, triple US aid to Pakistan to 7.5 billion dollars over five years, attempt to peel away more moderate Taliban factions and lead a global civilian surge to Afghanistan.

"Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that Al-Qaeda isactively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan," Obama said in a sober televised speech.

"We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future," he added in releasing the results of a 60-day review.

"That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you."

The US moves were cheered by allies, as well as the United Nations, and hailed by both Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan, ahead of an international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague next week.

Britain is reportedly preparing a troop increase in Afghanistan and Russia said it was ready to step up cooperation with NATO in the country. EU foreign ministers also said they could increase civilian help.

Obama backed a Senate bill to triple US aid to Pakistan's democratic government to 1.5 billion dollars a year over five years.

"Make no mistake, Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies are a cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within," he said, hours after a suicide bomb at a mosque in Pakistan killed about 50 people and wounded 50 more.

But he warned Pakistan must "demonstrate its commitment" to eliminating extremists on its soil.

Meanwhile, Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military officer, told CNN that there are "indications" that elements of Pakistan's intelligence service lend support to Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence ISI has been widely accused of refusing to sever its links with Islamist groups that date back to the Cold War and the US-backed fight against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

But Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari welcomed Obama's initiatives "to strengthen democracy," Pakistani state media reported, adding the speech would further "cement" ties between the two countries.

Zardari is reportedly set to meet with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai and Turkey's Abdullah Gul in Ankara next week to focus on security issues.

Afghanistan also welcomed the revised US strategy, as violence flared up again. An Afghan soldier opened fire on US-led coalition troops in northern Afghanistan Friday and killed two of them, wounding a third before killing himself, the Afghan and US militaries said.

The Afghan government "particularly appreciates the recognition that the Al-Qaeda threat mainly emanates from Pakistan," Karzai's chief spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, told AFP.

"That's how we will prepare Afghans to take responsibility for their security and how we will, ultimately, be able to bring our own troops home," he said.





Kasahara