US Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey on Monday said the US did not have any intelligence yet on whether the deadly weekend attack was planned in Pakistan. Addressing reporters at the Pentagon during a press conference with Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta, General Dempsey revealed that the 36 attackers who terrorised Kabul were linked to the infamous Haqqani network, but he declined to comment on whether the attack was planned in Pakistan. To a question Panetta said there was no question that the Haqqanis were based in Pakistan.
“They have also moved across the border and operate in enclaves in Afghanistan. There is a concern that they continue to find safe haven in Pakistan. We have made clear to the Pakistanis that this is not tolerable,” the US secretary of defence said without committing to whether Haqqanis planned the Kabul attack while on Pakistani soil. Panetta said they had intelligence that indicated that the Haqqani network was behind the attacks that took place in Kabul over the weekend. “We had received a great deal of intelligence that the Haqqanis were planning these kinds of attacks,” he said. He said the attacks reflect Taliban were resilient, and this was the beginning of their spring offensive. However, he added that they believed that with the Afghan Army, the US would be able to combat these attacks.
