Tensions with United States prompt Pakistani leaders' talks

Sep 25, 2011, 10:49 GMT

Islamabad - Tensions with the United States over alleged Pakistani ties with Islamist militants prompted both political and military leaders in Islamabad to hold security consultations on Sunday, Pakistani officials said.

The consultations started after Washington accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency of links with the Haqqani militant group involved in recent attacks in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had called main opposition leader and former two-time prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, the heads of the right-wing Jamiat Ulema Islam and Jamati Islami parties and other leaders to apprize them about the security situation after the US accusations, said a government official.

The army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was also meeting with his top commanders in a 'special meeting' to 'review the prevailing security situation in the country,' said military spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, in a statement.

On Thursday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, called the Haqqani a 'veritable arm of the ISI' and accused the Pakistani spy agency of being involved in a terrorist attack against the US embassy in Kabul last week that killed 24 people, including the nine attackers.

'We also have credible intelligence that they were behind the June 28th attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller, but effective operations,' said the chairman.

Pakistan rejected the allegations, and Prime Minister Gilani addressing a groups of diplomats on Saturday 'strongly rejected the assertion of complicity with the Haqqanis,' the government said in a statement.

General Kayani on Friday also termed the allegations 'very unfortunate,' adding that 'Admiral Mullen knows full well which countries are in contact with the Haqqanis,' an apparent reference to reported US contacts with the Haqqani group to bring it into negotiations.

Pakistan officially abandoned support for the Taliban when it joined the war on terror after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. But Washington has long suspected the ISI of aiding the insurgents to install a pro-Pakistan regime in Kabul after the withdrawal of western forces.

Relations between Washington and Islamabad came under pressure after the US killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May, highlighting Pakistan's apparent failure to track down the man on top of the US' most wanted list.

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