Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake conveyed the message to top Pakistan leadership while on a visit to Islamabad recently. He himself disclosed this while addressing foreign reporters in Washington on April 1.
Blake said: ‘I urged them (Pakistan) to also take action against the Punjab-based groups, such as LeT, not only because that’s important to India, but it’s important to the United States. LeT has growing ambition and scope in its activities, as shown by the David Headley case. So we think it’s very much in the interests of Pakistan, as well, to take action against the LeT’.
Answering a question, the American officials said while Pakistan has made ‘important’ progress in the Swat operation, it must move against the Punjab- based terror groups as many of them are targeting Pakistan itself.
‘I thanked all of our interlocutors in Pakistan for the very important progress that Pakistan has made to date, first in its campaign in Swat and one more recently in South Waziristan, and then the arrest of Taliban leaders that you will all have seen. But we think there also needs to be progress against these Punjab-based groups, many of which, by the way, are targeting Pakistan, as well’, Blake remarked.
