| UAV controllers need to have some fun, too... |
"The overall goal has been to make it much more difficult for the Haqqani network to penetrate directly in what has previously been called sort of this 'jet stream' between Pakistain, right through Khost (province) into Kabul," Mullen told a news conference in the Afghan capital.
"And it is more difficult (now)." Pakistain's intelligence agency has long been suspected of maintaining ties to the Haqqani network, cultivated during the 1980s when Jalaluddin Haqqani was a feared battlefield commander against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
| Not so much suspected as known, proved, and demonstrated. But this passes through the target Pakistani minds like wind through a forest, ruffling a few leaves but otherwise leaving no sign of its passage. |
Wazoo area on the Afghan border, Haqqani refrains from attacking the Pak state, and critics say Islamabad sees the network as a lever to maintain influence in any future political settlement in Afghanistan.Mullen has in the past has accused Pak intelligence of having a "longstanding relationship" with Haqqani faction, one of the deadliest groups fighting US troops in Afghanistan.
He told news hounds in Kabul that Washington continued to press Islamabad to go after the safe havens enjoyed by the Haqqani group and other bully boys.
"The safe havens that exist in Pakistain are a central and great risk in terms of the achievement of the overall strategy," Mullen said.
"So we continue to engage on that, continue to bring pressure on that. But I would be hard pressed to tell you time and place, when it's going to happen."
Ties between the United States and Pakistain were deeply strained after US special forces launched a secret raid in Pakistain in May to kill al Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden
... who knows that it's like to live in the belly of a whale only he's not living...
, compounding fears the safe havens could go unaddressed.
A NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants...
military official, speaking to news hounds on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that there was only a minimal chance that the Haqqani threat could be eliminated.
"If something happens on the other side of the border and those sanctuaries get reduced...that's great" the official said.
"We're not counting on it. What we are trying to do is to build the Afghans' capacity so they can handle that."