Admiral accuses Pakistani agency of backing terrorists

WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. military officer said Thursday that Pakistan's intelligence agency backs terrorists who attacked the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan and triggered a truck bomb that wounded 77 American soldiers days earlier.

"In choosing to use violent extremism as an instrument of policy, the government of Pakistan … jeopardizes not only the prospect of our strategic partnership, but also Pakistan's opportunity to be a respected nation with legitimate regional influence," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Washington has long accused elements within Pakistan's government of supporting insurgents fighting Afghan and coalition forces across the border. Lawmakers are voicing increasing frustration that the U.S. policy of attempting to pressure Pakistan's government to take action is not getting anywhere.

"Would you agree with me, if something doesn't change in Pakistan substantially, that we're on a collision course with Pakistan?" Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at the hearing.

"It has to change, yes," Panetta said. "We can't … continue this situation that's there now."

Based in Pakistan, the Haqqani network was responsible for the embassy attack in Kabul on Sept. 13 that made headlines worldwide, Mullen said. He said evidence indicated the Haqqani network was behind a truck bomb that killed five Afghans and wounded 77 coalition troops this month.

Mullen said the Haqqani network is supported and protected by the Pakistani government and is a "veritable arm" of its Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. The ability of insurgents to seek sanctuary in Pakistan has made fighting them in Afghanistan more difficult, he said.

He said history shows it would be difficult to defeat an insurgency when fighters enjoy a sanctuary outside national boundaries as is happening in the Afghanistan War.

"The support of terrorism is part of their national strategy," said Mullen, "and that's got to fundamentally shift."

The administration's policy has been to work with Pakistan to get it to to take action against insurgents, and Mullen has met frequently with Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, chief of Pakistan's armed forces.

The Pentagon has praised the Pakistanis for launching large offensives against insurgents in remote border regions. But the relationship between Islamabad and Washington soured when the United States launched a raid into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. Pakistan was not told about the raid beforehand.

Mullen said engagement with Pakistan is the right course. "I believe that a flawed and difficult relationship is better than no relationship at all," he said.

Pakistan views its ties with insurgent groups as a hedge against an eventual U.S. withdrawal of its forces in Afghanistan and the possibility that the Taliban will remain a potent power there, analysts say.

"The Pakistanis will do what they think is in their interest," said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, a think tank.