WikiLeaks: Pak terror threats gave PM Manmohan Singh 'sleepless nights'

New Delhi: In the summer of 2009, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, newly victorious in the Lok Sabha elections, was quoted as telling US Under Secretary William Burns that "he did not sleep well at night" knowing that intelligence information "demonstrated that the threat of terror attacks after Mumbai was far from over."

A cable sent from the US embassy in Delhi to brief Washington about the June 11, 2009 Singh-Burns meeting, and accessed by WikiLeaks, also quotes the Indian PM as making clear that while he was committed to meeting Pakistan "more than halfway" and "not afraid of talks," India needed assurances that Pakistan would not be a base for terror directed against India.

"He cautioned if he as Prime Minister was talking peace while  Pakistani territory was being used to plan and conduct terror  attacks against India, then 'he would look ridiculous' in  front of the Indian people," Charge d'affaires Peter Burleigh said in the cable.

Other WikiLeaks cables accessed by NDTV show that in the same month that Manmohan Singh met Burns, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had warned Pakistan about intelligence inputs indicating advanced Lashkar e Taiba plans to launch more terror attacks in India. (Read: US concerned about possible LeT attacks against India) 

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Manmohan Singh was due to meet Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in Russia a few days after his meeting with Burns, but demurred when asked by Burns for an assessment of the Pakistani leadership. But Burleigh's cable quotes him as saying that "India was worried about the growing influence of the Taliban in Pakistan...Singh observed  there was a 'duality of thought processes' in Pakistan and particularly in the military.  There were some who clearly regarded the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) as strategic assets."

(As part of a special arrangement that NDTV has come to with WikiLeaks, we will be reporting on cables dispatched by American diplomats who were posted in Pakistan. We shall do this along with the DAWN of Pakistan and the Indian daily The Hindu. All the cables will be posted on NDTV.com as we report on them and can be read here at 6:30 am IST/1:00 UTC.) 

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