Domestic threats: ‘Pakistan’s hands full against militants’

NEW YORK:

Pakistan is so busy fighting its own militants that it can do little more to help Nato forces battling in Afghanistan, Nato’s top civilian leader in Afghanistan said on Monday.

Senior Civilian Representative for Nato in Afghanistan Mark Sedwill said that Pakistani attitudes were hardening towards guerrilla groups that had previously been supported by the state.

“In the past, they had relations with various groups,” he told the Asia Society think-tank in New York, but now “I think there has been a shift.”

“People sometimes say the Pakistanis must do more ... (but) actually they have lost an awful lot of soldiers fighting the groups that target them,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2011.