Pakistan asks US not to launch more attacks

Pakistan has called on the US not to carry out further attacks on alleged terrorist bases in Afghanistan, saying this will only worsen the situation, BBC and VOA reported on Saturday quoting Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz as saying in an interview with the Reuters TV.

The Foreign Minister made the call after American Defence Secretary William Cohen refused to rule out further military action.

Sartaj said he could not understand how the US could achieve its objective by launching missile attacks "which it says are aimed at destroying terrorists training camps." The US military actions would result in retaliatory attacks, he warned.

He said, "the US should abandon the policy of launching more missile attacks on what it calls terrorist bases." Instead, the US should pursue diplomatic and legal methods to counter terrorism, he added.

NNI Adds: He said "The United States is talking about more (strikes). In our view there are other options, particularly diplomatic options, subtle approaches to find out who is responsible for what, and manage or counter that particular element.''

The United States launched missile strikes against suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on Thursday in response to the bombings of its embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam on August 7.

Washington has hinted at more strikes to destroy suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

"I don't think this retaliatory action will achieve the objective that it is meant for,'' Aziz said.

He said terrorism should be dealt with through international legal channels instead of "unilateral pre-emptive" strikes "which in our view would not meet the objective, but further galvanise those elements and it will probably lead to further retaliation."

Aziz said the United States was reaping what it sowed in Afghanistan a decade ago when it funded resistance to the Soviet occupation of the country in the 1980s.

Once the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the United States abandoned the country with all its problems, and in many cases the people it had paid were now the same people it was trying to kill, he said.

"Many of these people who are now the targets were developed, brought in, encouraged, financed by the anti-Russian operation in Afghanistan by the U.S. and some other countries.

"Instead of winding down or taking care of the leftover of those operations collectively, Pakistan has been left to handle the refugees, the drugs, the guns and now the terrorism fallout,'' Aziz said.

"I think Pakistan has paid very dearly for supporting the West in its anti-Russian campaign in Afghanistan without appreciation of its role or without being saved from the fallout from that struggle.''

Pakistan, Afghanistan, the former Soviet Union and the United States signed an agreement in 1988 for the withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Afghanistan by early 1989.

Pakistan has since complained that the United States abandoned both Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Soviet withdrawal, which left behind a culture of guns and violence.

Since 1989 rival guerrilla groups have fought bloody battles for control of the country.

The Taliban, which vows to enforce strict Islamic sharia law nationwide, recently gained control of more than 90 per cent of Afghanistan.

The Taliban are hosts to Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, whom the United States has linked to bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Bin Laden gained the Taliban's friendship while fighting against the Soviet invaders.

He has, along with several other Islamic groups, declared a jihad against the United States.

Aziz suggested that the fight against terrorism could be channelled through an international law court in Rome. "If that court were to be presented evidence of international terrorism and if that court were to give a judgment that so-and-so is responsible for this (terrorism), then every group or country would readily cooperate in either capturing that person or punishing that person,'' Aziz said.