Pakistan to decide NWA timing: US
* Gates says Washingtons focus on increasing cooperation on terrorism than pushing for qualitative change
* Gen Kayani alluded a year ago to N Waziristan mission plans
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon expressed confidence on Thursday that Pakistan would mount an offensive in North Waziristan, but said Islamabad would decide on the timing.
US President Barack Obama dispatched White House National Security Adviser Jim Jones and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Pakistan earlier this week to urge Islamabad to step up pressure on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan following a botched May 1 car-bombing in New Yorks Times Square.
But US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking at a Pentagon press conference, said Washingtons focus was on seeing how can we intensify our cooperation in dealing with this mutual threat rather than on pushing for any qualitative change in Pakistans approach.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US militarys Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Pakistans Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Kayani had indicated to him more than a year ago that he had plans to execute that mission in North Waziristan.
But Mullen said the timing was really up to him (Kiyani) and the US understood that the Pakistani military was already stretched by operations in other tribal areas.
Hes got two fronts. Hes got a military thats lost a lot of soldiers, sacrificed a great deal, and so that it makes a lot of sense to me that he does get to pick this timeline, Mullen said. When I have dealt with him in the past, what he has said he would do in the future, hes always done.
Gates estimated that Pakistan already had seven divisions and 140,000 troops in and around the tribal areas, calling it a huge effort.
US investigators believe accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, who was born in Pakistan and became a US citizen last year, received assistance from the TTP.
Gates said the TTPs growing reach from attacking the government to plotting a car-bombing in Times Square showed that we now have a mutual interest in trying to stop this group stop it from carrying out attacks inside Pakistan, stop it from carrying out attacks outside of Pakistan, and especially in the United States. reuters
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