LD GATES 2 LAST

"After the Mumbai attacks, India had responded with great
restraint and statesmanship. But if attacked again, the
response is a question. I leave this question to the Indian
government," Gates said.

His comments assume significance as India had restrained
itself after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008 despite
tremendous public outrage and demands for military action
against Pakistan. The 60-hour-long attacks were carried out by
LeT and were organised and handled from Pakistan.
The US Defence Secretary said it would be "very
dangerous" to single out any one group out of the syndicate to
be targeted as all of them needed to combated together.
Pressing the need for high level of cooperation to
eliminate such forces, he said it would be difficult to wipe
them out by targeting only one of the groups.
In this regard, he said, it was important for all the
countries to "remain engaged and eliminate the terror groups".
Asked whether Indian leadership had asked him to press
Pakistan to do more on combating terror groups on its soil,
Gates said the discussions focussed on syndication of
different terror groups and "how they put all of the region,
India and Pakistan, at risk."
He said one of subjects of his next visit to Pakistan
would be "allay its concerns" so that "they can focus on the
real existential threat to Pakistan from groups operating from
its territory."
Queried whether he sought India's military role in
Afghanistan, Gates suggested that the US was not interested in
it given the "real suspicions" between India and Pakistan
about the role each is playing there. PTI NCB
RDM


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