US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief General James Mattis has said that Pakistan Army has thrown the Taliban back into the mountains as it continues to fight them, and safe havens in some of the areas could exist because the Pakistani forces were stretched. “Pakistan Army has thrown the Taliban back up into the mountains. They continue to fight. They fought this week. They continue to take casualties in this fight. And the havens that are there in some of those areas exist because the Pakistan Army is stretched,” he stressed while speaking at the hearing of the House Armed Services Committee here. The statement by Mattis came a few days after he met Pakistan’s newly appointed Ambassador to US Sherry Rehman. General Mattis said the US had a problematic relationship with Pakistan at times, but that does not prevent them from working together.
There is a lot of common ground that both the countries use and operate together against the enemy, he added. He said if he had been appearing before this committee two and a half years ago, he would have been asked that the Taliban were moving towards Islamabad and were only 60 miles away in Swat Valley. He said today the Pakistan Army had thrown them back into the mountains. As for the current state of relations, the CENTCOM commander said he would be flying back to the region in a couple of weeks but pointed out that the Pakistani Parliament has under consideration an investigation into what had happened at Salala checkpost in late November. He said a determination is being made by the parliament of what sort of relationship they want with US in the future.
Replying to a question by Republican Joe Courtney regarding the presence of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, General Mattis said he had looked at the evidence and he does not believe that anyone in authority in Pakistan was aware that the al Qaeda chief was in Abbottabad. He said he was well aware that nobody was in the knowledge of OBL’s presence in Abbottabad.
