A top United States military commander has said a close watch had to be kept on Lashkar-e-Tayiba, blamed for the Mumbai carnage, which may try to carry out more attacks, as he asked Pakistan to focus more on confronting Taliban and extremists within its own borders, instead of India.
"We should observe the LeT, the group that carried out the Mumbai attacks, again, we think they are trying to do more damage, and they are trying to carry out additional attacks," General David Petraeus, Commander of US Central Command, said while testifying before a Congressional Committee on Friday.
"And one would think that, again, extremists that are trying to cause that kind of tension and also to take the focus off of the internal extremist threat would indeed strive to do that," the General said.
He said the most important, most pressing threat to the very existence of Pakistan is the "threat posed by the internal extremists and groups such as the Taliban and the syndicated extremists", Petraeus said.
The Pakistani military needs to fight extremists "rather than strictly focus on the conventional threat that has been traditionally the focus of the military, to their east, which is India," he said.
Petraeus said many observers "correctly assess" that India played a very constructive role in avoiding a further increase in tensions that might have been understandable given the death inflicted on its innocent civilians in Mumbai.
The US military general said both Ambassador Holbrooke and he have met with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and others and have been in constant touch with them.
"And we obviously work very closely of course, with the PACOM commander, when we're doing this on the military side," he said, adding, "Ambassador Holbrooke's first trip to the region, for example, didn't include just Afghanistan and Pakistan. It then continued on into India. It had my deputy with him for those. Then it brought the PACOM deputy out, in fact, to do the final two stops."
Responding to a question, General Petraeus said there are certain organisations which would like the Kashmir dispute to remain unresolved.
"They have built their existence on the basis of the need, if you will, to continue to carry out violent activities," he said, adding "If that could be done, frankly, in the same way as we look at the Mideast peace process it can help enormously."
