US, Kabul point fingers at Haqqanis for deadly attack

The brazen attack by the Taliban in the Afghan capital on Sunday has once again brought the Haqqani network into sharp focus, with the United States asking for a fresh stern action by Pakistan against this most influential militant group allegedly based in North Waziristan, as it is being suspected by Washington and Kabul of staging the assault on important government installations and the US embassy.
It has been only hours since the Taliban’s nearly 18-hour-long attack in Kabul, but authorities in Washington and Kabul have already started pointing fingers at the Haqqani network and Pakistan is once again being asked to take steps to weaken the powerful Taliban-linked insurgent group, which is blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in the past. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Washington’s envoy to Pakistan Cameron Munter separately urged upon Pakistan to take robust action to stop terror attacks.
The US, Pakistan and Afghanistan must work together to take “robust action” to stop terror attacks, Clinton told her Pakistani counterpart in a telephonic conversation on Monday. Clinton discussed the coordinated attacks in Kabul with Khar and “underscored our shared responsibility for robust action — by the US and ISAF, by Afghanistan, and by Pakistan — to confront and defeat terrorists and violent extremists,” a US official said.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Clinton had called Khar to talk about the next steps after Pakistan’s parliament approved new guidelines on its thorny relations with the United States. The two diplomats also “discussed the cowardly insurgent attacks in Afghanistan” on Sunday in which militants carried out a series of coordinated attacks in Kabul in an unprecedented 18-hour assault. “Initial indications are that the Haqqani network was involved in this set of attacks that occurred yesterday in Kabul,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said of Sunday’s assault.
The 18-hour attack was “well-coordinated,” but Afghan security forces “did a very effective job” in quelling the onslaught, Little told reporters. It was not surprising that insurgents had launched an attack with the advent of spring, when fighting usually escalates in Afghanistan, he said.
“We thought something like this may very well happen and it did,” he said. Meanwhile in Islamabad, Ambassador Munter called on Foreign Minister Khar on Monday and asked for action against the Haqqanis, according to diplomatic sources. Khar also spoke to her Afghan counterpart Dr Zalmai Rassoul on telephone to express solidarity with the Afghan government and the people for the Sunday’s attack in Kabul in which precious lives were lost.
“The Afghan FM also asked for immediate measures by Pakistan against the alleged Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistani tribal areas, including those of Haqqani network,” said a diplomatic source. He, however, said that foreign minister rejected the notion that Pakistan was not taking adequate measures against the militants in the Tribal Areas.
The source said the Kabul attack could once again raise tensions between Islamabad, Washington and Kabul and could harm the ongoing efforts between the US and Pakistan for the normalization of ties in the wake of approval of ‘guidelines’ on future Pak-US relations by parliament.
A security official said the claims that Haqqani network could be behind the Kabul attack on Sunday seemed to be the continuity of same old allegations leveled time and again by officials in Washington and Kabul.
“It is too early to assume who has carried out these assaults but it seems that American and Afghan authorities have made it a habit now to blame the Haqqanis for every bad thing happening in our neighboring state,” the official said, seeking anonymity.
A Foreign Office statement said Ambassador Munter visited the Foreign Office and called on Foreign Minister Khar.
“The foreign minister conveyed to the US ambassador the importance of the parliamentary process that examined Pakistan-US relations in the aftermath of the Salala incident, and the historical nature of democratic ownership of a vital bilateral relationship for Pakistan,” it said.
She told the ambassador that parliamentary approval for a renewed relationship with the US offered both countries a unique and unprecedented opportunity to establish a deeper relationship with one another based on shared values, mutual interests and mutual benefit.
Another Foreign Office statement said that Foreign Minister Khar called her Afghan counterpart on Monday.
“The foreign minister conveyed the solidarity of the government and people of Pakistan with their Afghan brethren on the terrorist attacks of Sunday April 15, 2012 in which many precious lives were lost,” it said.