US mulling more strikes in Pakistan
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:15:32 GMT

The US-led troops are ready to launch more cross-border raids into Pakistan to thwart insurgents’ assaults in Afghanistan, pentagon says.

Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said US commandos attack on an al-Qaeda target in Pakistan this week could signal more intense American efforts to thwart militant attacks in Afghanistan, the News reported Friday.

The raid targeted suspected operatives and aimed to disrupt militants’ safe havens, which pose an escalating threat to US, NATO and Afghan forces just across the border, claimed the officials.

Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman reiterated the United States would pursue its enemies.

“We are going to pursue terrorists wherever they operate, plan their operations, try to seek safe harbor,” said Whitman.

The remarks came after six people were killed in a missile attack fired by a suspected US drone in North Waziristan’s Mohammad Khel region, 15 kilometers (nine miles) west of the region’s main town Miranshah on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, US ground forces raided a border village in South Waziristan, killing 20 people, including seven women and three children. The attack injured several others.

The Senate or upper house of parliament and the National Assembly unanimously passed resolutions condemning the assault in South Waziristan, describing it as a ‘gross violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity’.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry condemned the cross-border raids by Afghanistan-based international troops on tribal villages as “shameful” and unjustified, saying that only civilians had been targeted.

There has been an increase in missile strikes on what the US claims are militants in Pakistan in recent weeks undertaken by the US-led coalition forces or CIA drones based in Afghanistan.