US implicitly defends killing Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud
Secretary of State John Kerry points to murderous history of Pakistani Taliban in response to criticism from Islamabad government propped-up by US$1.6 billion in American aid
The United States implicitly defended on Monday the killing of a top extremist leader in a drone strike in Pakistan, but admitted “tensions” and occasional “misunderstandings” in its relations with Islamabad.
The Pakistani government reacted angrily to Friday’s drone attack on Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Taliban in the violence-plagued country, saying it would scuttle its peace talks with the group.
The killing came just over a week after Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked President Barack Obama in Oval Office talks to stop drone strikes in the country.
“This is a man ... known to have targeted and killed many Americans, many Afghans and many Pakistanis."
“There inevitably will be some tensions and occasional misunderstandings between our two countries,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday.
“We hope to continue to make progress in the relationship, and we continue to seek ways for our countries to co-operate on the entire range of shared interests that we have, from economic to security issues.”
Carney would not confirm the drone strike that killed Mehsud, in line with normal practice in such attacks, but he said the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader had a long list of extremist credentials, including a failed bombing in Times Square, New York, in 2010.
Carney charged that Mehsud and other TTP leaders had “publicly vowed to continue targeting the United States and Americans”.
