Those who plotted the deadly attacks on World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, are still alive and planning to carry out more terror strikes, a top US military general has said.
"The people behind that deadly day are still at it. They live and plan and train in safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.
"They would like nothing better than to see either country or both fall prey to the grip of an extremist ideology. To the degree we let them succeed, we let ourselves become vulnerable," Mullen said in his address to the 91st annual American Legion Convention, Louisville, Kentucky.
"My mission, the one currently given to me by the President, is to prevent that from happening. And that's what we're going to do," Mullen said.
While Pakistanis are themselves waging their war against extremists, Mullen said, in Afghanistan, the war being waged to defeat Al-Qaida and its extremist allies is led by an international security force with Afghans.
"We have got to help them. That is why I ordered the establishment of a Pakistan-Afghanistan coordination cell, inside my own staff, to work exclusively on the issues of that region, to stay engaged," Mullen said.
