Extremists in Pakistan fighting back: Gen Petraeus

WASHINGTON: The extremists in Pakistan are killing innocent civilians as they are trying to fight back against a successful government campaign to uproot them, says the US military commander for the Afghan and Iraq wars.In an interview to PBS, Gen David Petraeus also observed that while he would be careful in describing US military gains in Afghanistan as ‘real success’, in Pakistan the government-led campaign against the militants had shown ‘considerable progress’.“I would be careful about describing, quote, ‘real success’ in Afghanistan,” said the commander of the US Central Command.“In Pakistan, there has indeed been considerable progress by the Pakistani army and the Frontier Corps against the Pakistani Taliban.”He noted that in the northwest, particularly in Swat and some of the tribal areas, the Pakistani armed forces had shown real progress, “but clearly (it is) very tough work”.The extremists in Pakistan, including the Taliban and their confederates, had “sought to fight back by doing what they do, which is carry out acts of indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians”.Gen Petraeus recalled that the extremists had always targeted civilians, “as they assassinated Benazir Bhutto and blew up visiting cricket teams and thousands and thousands of innocent Pakistani civilians and security force members.”What, according to him, enabled Pakistan to make ‘considerable progress’ in the fight against the extremists was “the determination and the perseverance they have demonstrated and the popular support for the continuing operations against extremists”.The Pakistani people, he noted, saw the extremists as representing the most pressing threat to their country’s existence.The people believed that the extremists wanted to turn the clock back several centuries instead of allowing Pakistan to move forward the way the bulk of the population wanted, he added.Gen Petraeus noted that while Ambassador Richard Holbrooke’s jurisdiction did not include India, he had been consulting the Indians very regularly.“I think, again, it’s not in the title, but he has certainly had a lot of activity with our Indian partners,” he said.The US military commander also drew a distinction between the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, he said, the US was “in the lead” as it had its troops there.“In Pakistan, supporting very much providing assistance, equipment, funding in some cases, occasionally sharing some information or what have you,” said Gen Petraeus while explaining the US engagement with Pakistan.The purpose behind this policy was “to enable the country to do it itself rather than for us to do it” for them.