US Senator John Kerry on Saturday said Washington would consider all options to kill Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar. He was replying to a question about a raid, similar to that in Abbottabad, to target Mullah Omar. “The United States government will always reserve all of its options to be able to protect our people. Other plots have been conducted and organised and planned out of Pakistan. It is really critical that we talk with the Pakistanis as friends,” Kerry told reporters in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, adding that the US obviously wanted a Pakistan which was prepared to respect the interests of Afghanistan, and to be a real ally in the efforts to combat terrorism inside Pakistani territory.
Kerry, who is visiting Afghanistan ahead of a trip to Pakistan to discuss strained bilateral ties, said Islamabad needed to improve efforts in fighting extremism, but the death of bin Laden provided a critical chance to move forward. “We believe there are things that can be done better. And there are serious questions that need to be answered in that relationship. But we’re not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart; we’re trying to find a way to build it.”
Kerry said Pakistan itself was a victim of extremism and faced tough decisions but the killing of bin Laden provided a new opportunity. On the other hand, US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told the CBS programme ’60 Minutes’ that he believed al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, was also in Pakistan. “I believe he’s in Pakistan,” Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, said in an interview to be aired on Sunday Asked whether he thought Pakistan was a good ally of the US, the chairman of the committee that oversees US intelligence agencies, says, “I would say Pakistan is an ally. There are challenges, there are serious challenges there and ‘ally’ may be too strong a word.”
