US President Barack Obama vowed on Wednesday to keep pressure on al Qaeda following the death of its chief Osama bin Laden in last month’s daring US raid in Pakistan. US military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan had served to “severely cripple al Qaeda’s capacities,” Obama said at a White House press conference. “Osama bin Laden got the most attention, but before that we decimated some of the upper ranks of al Qaeda,” he said.
The terror group was “having a great deal of difficulty operating and financing themselves. We’ll keep the pressure on,” Obama said. He stressed that it was in the US national interest “to make sure that you did not have a collapse of Afghanistan in which extremists elements could flood the zone once again, and over time al Qaeda may inbound a position to rebuild itself”.
US military forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan “in a responsible way that will allow Afghanistan to defend itself and will give us the operational capacity to continue to put pressure on Al-Qaeda until that network is entirely defeated,” he said.
KABUL MUCH SAFER: Obama insisted that Kabul was “much safer than it was”, but said he expected attacks like the one on the Intercontinental Hotel to continue for “some time”.
In his first public comments on the attack, Obama insisted that the Afghan forces responsible for security in Kabul were doing “a reasonably good job” and their capacity was increasing.
“Keep in mind, the drawdown has not begun, so we understand that Afghanistan is a dangerous place, and the Taliban is still active and there will be events like this on occasion,” he said.
Obama also said Libyan leader Moammer Gaddafi must step down to satisfy US concerns about the safety of Libya’s people. “He needs to step down. He needs to go,” Obama said He said US participation in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military strikes on Libya remained limited and legal, accusing congressional critics of making a “fuss” for political reasons.
He said he had fulfilled promises to avoid deploying US soldiers on Libyan territory and to avoid assuming the lion’s share of the strikes against Gaddafi’s forces. “As a consequence, we have not seen a single US casualty. There’s no risks of additional escalation,” the US president said.
Meanwhile, Obama’s top counter-terrorism aide John Brennan said the new US anti-terror plan focused on al Qaeda’s ability to inspire people in the US to carry out domestic attacks.
“This is the first counterterrorism strategy that designates the homeland as a primary area of emphasis in our counterterrorism efforts,” said Brennan, adding that the US was at the same time now seeking the “utter destruction” of al Qaeda.
