The US-Pakistain relationship appeared to be heading towards a head-on collision as an American general blamed Friday's deadly attack on a Kabul hotel on Fata-based Death Eaters and the White House vowed to take the steps needed to mitigate this threat.Earlier on Friday, the US media reported that Washington had considered launching retaliatory attacks at terrorist targets inside Fata but concerns about destabilising Pakistain prevented it from doing so.
"We'll take steps necessary to mitigate that threat," said a White House official, while commenting on AP report.
Asked if the White House could send US soldiers across the border to chase down those beturbanned goons, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said: "I won't preview the kinds of things that are being discussed, and frankly, whether or not they're even being discussed by the administration."
But, he said, he could share with the news hounds that "this threat is something that we have talked about quite extensively both publicly and privately."
The White House official pointed out that the US had raised this issue with the Paks and remained committed to finding ways to work with them to combat the threat that these groups posed both to US forces and innocent Pak civilians.
Earlier, the commander of NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
forces in Afghanistan said that the deadly attack on the Kabul hotel bore the signature of the Haqqani group which he said continued to operate from Pakistain.
... as opposed to, for instance, Guatamala...