WASHINGTON – Pakistan's leaders should focus on the looming threat posed by a stronger Taliban and extremists within their nation's borders, instead of their rivalry with India, a top U.S. military official said Friday.
Gen. David Petraeus urged Congress to approve $3 billion in aid to Pakistan for training its troops to fight insurgents in tribal areas.
"The most important, most pressing threat to the very existence of their country is the threat posed by the internal extremists and groups such as the Taliban and the syndicated extremists," Petraeus told a House panel Friday. Petraeus is the top U.S. commander overseeing troops in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military needs to fight extremists "rather than strictly focus on the conventional threat that has been traditionally the focus of the military, to their east, which is India," he said.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars over the Kashmir border region, and their continuing enmity has been the dominant factor affecting foreign policy for both nuclear-armed rivals.
As recently as December, following the bloody terror attacks in the Indian financial center in Mumbai, Pakistan moved thousands of troops from the Afghan border to the Indian frontier.
It was seen as an indication that Pakistan might retaliate if India launched air or missile strikes against militant targets on Pakistani soil.
Top officials in the Obama administration have voiced increasing concern in recent days as Taliban forces spilled out from their new stronghold in the Swat Valley and into a neighboring region within 60 miles of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned of the insurgent advances as an "existential threat" to Pakistan, then added that Pakistani leaders appeared to be responding to that peril.
At the State Department on Friday, spokesman Robert A. Wood refrained from criticizing Pakistan directly.
"We, the international community, have to help Pakistan meet these threats," Wood said. "But what's important is that Pakistan take the measures necessary to deal with the threat it faces. ... They need to take very decisive action to deal with these elements. These elements are a threat to not only Pakistan's internal security, but to its neighbors."
The Obama administration views the elimination of militant sanctuaries in Pakistan as critical to success in the Afghan war and preventing another Sept. 11-style terrorist strike on the United States. Al-Qaida's top leaders are believed to be hiding in tribal areas near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
Petraeus asked the House Appropriations subcommittee for $3 billion to help Pakistan root out and stop insurgents. Though some limited training has been ongoing, Petraeus said top Pakistani leaders have yet to give "complete commitment" to the mission by enabling its forces.
"The military by itself can't do it," he said.
Lawmakers on the panel did not offer a complete commitment to Petraeus' money pitch but generally voiced support for his mission.
The Obama administration is sending an estimated 68,000 troops to Afghanistan over the next several years to bolster security there. Petraeus called al-Qaida and its allies "transnational extremists" who live along and cross the mountainous border.
Separately, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said in an interview broadcast Friday that he was "extremely concerned" about the Taliban's recent moves closer to Islamabad.
Adm. Mike Mullen said he hoped the arrival soon of an additional 17,000 U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan will stabilize things there and in neighboring Pakistan.
"We're going as fast as we can go right now and we want to get it right," he said on NBC's "Today" show.
But Mullen also said the Afghan people "have to take over security for their nation. That's the only way we're going to be successful."
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