Pakistanis exports violence to Afghanistan: Mullen

Washington: The top US military officer on Thursday accused Pakistan of "exporting violence" to Afghanistan and said this puts in jeopardy not only the frayed US-Pakistani partnership against terrorism but also the prospects for a successful outcome to the decade-old war in Afghanistan.

In his final Congressional testimony before retiring next week, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen said success in Afghanistan is threatened not only by the Pakistani government's support for the Haqqani network and other Al Qaeda-aligned extremist groups but also by Afghan government corruption.

"If we continue to draw down forces apace while such public and systemic corruption is left unchecked," Mullen told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "I believe we risk leaving behind a government in which we cannot reasonably expect Afghans to have faith. At best this would lead to localised conflicts inside the country; at worst it could lead to government collapse and civil war."

Mullen said Pakistan's government has chosen to "use violent extremism as an instrument of policy," adding that "by exporting violence, they have eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being."

Testifying alongside Mullen, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta also decried Pakistani support for the Haqqani network, and he said Pakistani authorities have been told in unequivocal terms that the US will not tolerate a continuation of the group's cross-border attacks. Panetta said the message was delivered recently by new CIA director David Petraeus in a meeting with the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI.

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"They must take steps to prevent the safe haven that the Haqqanis are using," Panetta said. "We simply cannot allow these kinds of terrorists to be able to go into Afghanistan, attack our forces and then return to Pakistan for safe haven."

Panetta also said that US and Afghan forces are searching for ways to better defend against spectacular attacks by insurgents, like the assault on the US Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul last week.

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In his first Congressional testimony since taking office, Panetta said it is important to limit insurgents' ability to create the perception that security in the Afghan capital is deteriorating.

Overall, he said, the US and NATO effort to stabilise Afghanistan is "headed in the right direction."

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In recent days, administration officials have taken a harsher tone toward Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of maintaining links with the Haqqani network, a band of Islamist fighters that the US says are behind attacks in Afghanistan, including last week's attack on the US Embassy in Kabul.

Mullen, who has met frequently with his Pakistani counterpart, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, over the past few years, said in prepared remarks for the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the Haqqanis have "long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government" and are "in many ways a strategic arm" of Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. He said the Haqqanis were behind several recent major attacks in Afghanistan, including the embassy attack and a Sept. 10 truck bomb that killed five Afghans and injured 77 US soldiers.

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Mullen said earlier this week there is a "proxy connection" between Pakistani intelligence services and the Haqqanis, meaning the militants are secretly doing the Pakistanis' bidding.

"The Haqqani piece of this has got to be reversed - period," he told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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Mullen said he delivered that message to Kayani last week during a meeting in Spain.

The increasingly tough US rhetoric - particularly the accusation of a proxy relationship - reflects a US belief that Pakistani intelligence in recent months has more aggressively facilitated attacks by the Haqqanis on Afghan and American targets inside Afghanistan, one senior military official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said it's unclear whether Pakistani leaders intend to heed US warnings.

Late last week, Panetta asserted that the US will do whatever necessary to stop the Haqqani network attacks on US forces. He would not say whether that means that the US will take new military action, but there already has been an increase in US drone strikes into Pakistan's border regions.

Panetta's remarks were interpreted as a veiled warning that the US may resort again to unilateral action against the insurgents. Such public warnings, however, may only damage anti-terror cooperation between the two nations, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Tehmina Janjua said.

After the US raided Osama bin Laden's secret compound inside Pakistan in May - without alerting Pakistani authorities in advance - relations deteriorated further. Pakistan suspended a program under which US Special Operations forces helped train Pakistani forces in counterterrorist tactics. US officials on Wednesday disclosed a compromise deal to slash the number of US military personnel allowed in Pakistan to between 100 and 150, about half of what it had been. The number of special operations trainers would fall from 140 to fewer than 10.

The Haqqani connection in Pakistan, and the haven that Pakistan provides for other Islamic extremist groups, including the Taliban, are major impediments to US success in Afghanistan. Another major worry is corruption inside the Afghan government, as the US and its NATO allies proceed with a plan to hand over full responsibility for security and other functions to the Afghans by the end of 2014. By that date, all US combat forces are to have been withdrawn.