Amid strained relations between Washington and Islamabad over NATO strike on Pakistani posts, adopting a tough stance against Pakistan, a top Republican senator has charged its intelligence agency with continuing to support the Haqqani network and other terrorist groups, US media reported on Tuesday.
“Pakistan’s intelligence agency continues to support the Haqqani Network and other terrorist groups that are killing US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, and the vast majority of the material used to make improvised explosive devices originates from two fertiliser factories in Pakistan,” Senator John McCain told a US news channel.
The Republican presidential candidate in 2008 election, McCain said all Americans were deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Pakistani soldiers in cross-border air attack.
“I fully support NATO’s commitment to investigate this tragedy thoroughly and immediately. It’s important to note that certain factors in Pakistan continue to complicate significantly the ability of coalition and Afghan forces to succeed in Afghanistan,” he said.
In an interview to Fox Business, McCain noted that Pakistan has every reason to be angry at the killing of its troops, but argued that such things do happen in war.
At the same time, the senator stressed that the US too was angry with Pakistan on a number of issues.
“I think they should be angry whenever something like that happens and it’s a tragedy and we have expressed our condolences and the military commander there, and our ambassador and everybody and we here regret it enormously,” he added.
“But the fact is, we are in a war, these things happen in wars, as tragic as it is. We also have many reasons to be very unhappy with what the Pakistanis have been doing, including the ISI, their intelligence group, supporting the Haqqani network which is killing Americans,” McCain said.
US angry over ISI’s continued support to Haqqani network: McCain
