Barak Obama, trailing front-runner for Democratic party nomination Hillary Clinton, has hit out at Pakistan, apparently in an attempt to meet the charge that foreign policy is his weakest suit. He told a meeting Wednesday that the United States must be willing to hit what he called Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan. He also said if he were elected, he would make aid to Pakistan conditional on its performance in the war against terrorism. “I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.” He also charged that new recruits are being trained in Pakistan by “those who attacked us”.He said, “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” The Pakistan Foreign Office declined to comment without seeing Obama’s exact remarks, but issued a general warning for candidates. “He (Obama) is not the president of the United States, we do not make comments on the observations of individual politicians. However, these are serious matters and should not be used for point-scoring,” FO spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.
