Pakistan's Zardari Urges US General to Stop Missile Strikes
By VOA News
03 November 2008
Pakistan's president has urged a top U.S. general to stop missile strikes on militant targets in Pakistani territory.
The Associated Press of Pakistan quotes President Asif Ali Zardari as telling visiting U.S. General David Petraeus Monday in Islamabad that the attacks are "counter-productive."
Unmanned U.S. aircraft are believed to have carried out repeated missile strikes on militant strongholds in Pakistani border regions near Afghanistan since August.
The state news agency says Mr. Zardari also told Petraeus that the attacks have resulted in the loss of innocent lives and property.
Earlier, Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar warned Petraeus that the missile strikes risk inflaming anti-American sentiment.
Petraeus arrived in Pakistan on Sunday. It is his first foreign trip since he took over as the head of all U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia last week.
He is accompanied on the trip by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher.
Petraeus previously served as the head of the U.S. military mission in Iraq. In his new role, he will oversee that mission, as well as operations in Afghanistan.
The United States considers Pakistan a key ally in its war against al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, but the relationship has been strained by the cross-border strikes.
In the most recent incident Friday, intelligence officials say a suspected U.S. missile strike killed more than 20 people, including a mid-level al-Qaida leader, in northwest Pakistan.
Petraeus' strategies are widely credited with helping reduce violence in Iraq during his one-and-a-half years in command. In a recent interview with VOA he said he plans to use some of the same strategies in Afghanistan.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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