Taliban Shura hiding in Balochistan, says Admiral Mullen

ISLAMABAD: The top leadership of the Taliban is hiding in Balochistan province, Admiral Mike Mullen, the US Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said.Pakistan lies at the core of America’s strategic concerns, said Richard Holbrooke, the new US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke and Admiral Mullen were talking informally to a select group of invitees to dinner at US Ambassador Anne Patterson’s house in the US embassy compound last night. The American delegation was accompanied by a small group of leading journalists from the top US newspapers, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The delegation came to Pakistan from Kabul where it met with President Hamid Karzai and over two hundred other notables. Apparently, the Americans were told by Afghan officials that Afghanistan’s problems lay exclusively in Pakistan.Holbrooke talked of America’s long term commitment to Pakistan’s economy and military and referred to the Kerry-Lugar bill for $7.5 billion for Pakistan over five years. Asked if the US was winning or losing the war in Afghanistan, Admiral Mullen said that since the US was not winning, it could be said that it was losing it. But Holbrooke put it differently. He said neither the US nor the Al Qaeda-Taliban network was winning it.Baitullah: Admiral Mullen said that the US was targeting Baitullah Mehsud now because he had established strategic links with Al Qaeda in the past year or so and was facilitating Al Qaeda’s attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan. He praised Pakistani COAS General Ashfaq Kayani as a straight-talking general with whom he could work with mutual trust and benefit at the tactical and strategic level. However, the Americans left no doubt in anyone’s mind that the economic and military aid to Pakistan would be linked to Pakistan’s concrete support to the war against Al Qaeda. But they also insisted that America respected Pakistan’s sovereignty and there was no chance of American “boots on ground” in FATA. After dinner, Holbrooke and Admiral Mullen left to call on President Asif Zardari.