US President Barack Obama has said that Pakistan must “take care” of the Haqqani network, which, according to the US Treasury Department, is a Taliban-affiliated group of militants that operates from North Waziristan Agency.
Obama did not endorse the allegations made by Admiral Mike Mullen, the departing chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the Haqqani network was an arm of Pakistan’s intelligence service.
"I think Mike's testimony expressed frustration over the fact that safe havens exist, including the Haqqani network safe haven inside Pakistan," the US president said in a radio interview when asked about Mullen’s testimony at a Senate hearing last week.
“The intelligence is not as clear as we might like in terms of what exactly that relationship is,” the Dawn quoted Obama, as saying.
“But my attitude is, whether there is active engagement with Haqqani on the part of the Pakistanis, or rather just passively allowing them to operate … they’ve got to take care of this problem,” he added.
Mullen had said at a Senate hearing last week that the Haqqani network of terrorists was “a veritable arm” of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and that the Pakistani intelligence agency had directed the militant group’s recent attacks at US installations in Kabul.
The remarks caused a diplomatic storm, forcing the White House to say that it did not endorse the outgoing US military chief’s language although it too believed that the Haqqanis were using their bases in Pakistan to attack US and Afghan targets.
During the same interview, Obama said that the United States would continue to push Pakistan to do more to curb militants based in its border regions, while maintaining intelligence cooperation with the country.
“We’ve been very firm with them about needing to go after safe havens inside of Pakistan, but we’ve tried to also preserve the intelligence cooperation that we’ve obtained that’s allowed us to go after al-Qaeda in a very effective way,” he said.