Target all terrorists, militants without distinction, US tells Pakistan

The United States has once again raised with Pakistan the importance of exterminating “all terrorists and militants without distinction” in South Asia acknowledging Islamabad has yet to give up its support for terrorists who serve and further its agenda and oppose those who don’t.

The issue was discussed by secretary of state Mike Pompeo with Pakistani chief of army staff Qamar Bajwa on Wednesday, US state department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement.

Islamabad has been long accused of supporting “good terrorists”, Pakistan-based entities which operate in India and Afghanistan, from “bad terrorists” or those who have turned upon their onetime masters and backers bringing home to them the horrors they had devised for their enemies.

This was possibly the first call or conversation Pompeo has had with a high ranking Pakistani official after taking over as secretary of state in May. His predecessor Rex Tillerson had had a few more, and a visit to Islamabad, during which he had delivered to them a list of the US’ “asks”.

Pompeo and Qamar also spoke about ways to “advance” bilateral ties, the spokesperson said.

One-time allies, the two countries have been in a free-fall over Pakistan’s continued failure to act decisively against terrorists based on its soil and despite repeated and escalating US warnings topped up earlier in the year by drastic cuts in security-related aid by nearly $2 billion.

US President Donald Trump put Pakistan on notice in a landmark speech last August while unveiling his new Afghanistan-centric South Asia strategy. He followed it up with an equally unequivocal warning in his maiden speech to the UN general assembly meeting. And then with the aid cut in January.

A succession of US officials have since said they have noticed no perceptible change in Pakistan’s behaviour on terrorism.

Pompeo told a congressional committee in May that the US had released far fewer funds in 2018 than in prior years, as a result of the cuts announced earlier, and “remainder of the funds available are under review … my guess is that the number will be smaller still”.

Later in June, Pakistan will be put on a “grey list” of countries marked for special scrutiny by Financial Action Task Force, a secretive world body that monitors terrorist financing and money laundering, in a move proposed, backed and rammed through by the US in February.

In April, the US moved to end Pakistan’s cynical attempt to mainstream terrorist outfits by designating a political front floated by Lashkar-e-Taiba, which killed 164 people in a terrorists attack in Mumbai in 2008, as a terrorist outfit. It also named seven of its officials.

The two countries have also imposed restrictions on the movement of the other country’s diplomats. Pompeo has complained American diplomats were being treated “badly” by Pakistan.

The third topic discussed by the US secretary of state, who is among the cabinet members closest to Trump, and the Pakistani army chief, who is effectively the most powerful official in Pakistan, was Afghanistan.

They talked about “the need for political reconciliation in Afghanistan”, the state department spokesperson said.