Biden Vows More Strikes Inside Pakistan

Biden vows more strikes inside Pakistan | Press TV

US Vice President Joe Biden emphasizes that Pentagon would not hesitate to launch strikes inside Pakistani territories near the Afghan border.

"I can say that the President of the United States said during his campaign and in the debates that if there is an actionable target, of a high-level al-Qaeda personnel, that he would not hesitate to use action to deal with that," Pakistani media quoted him on Monday.

The remarks come after 22 people were killed in two separate US missile strikes in the Waziristan region, on Friday.

US commanders said they had consulted President Barack Obama before launching recent drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

"Four days after assuming the presidency, he (Obama) was consulted by US commanders before they launched the two attacks," Guardian said Sunday.

Earlier, Obama had threatened to invade and send ground troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists - even without permission from Pakistan's Government.

Obama has also hinted at increased operations in Pakistan, saying he thought George W. Bush had made a mistake in switching to Iraq before completing the job against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama has made the war in Afghanistan and what the US calls the intertwined fight with al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan a foreign policy priority. He has emphasized that Pakistan and Afghanistan are the central front in the US so-called war against terrorism.

Meanwhile Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday said he will take up the issue with world leaders at an upcoming economic summit in Davos, Switzerland.

Gilani was also of the opinion that the US policy in Afghanistan had not been successful as the situation in the neighboring country was not normal and violence has taken a surge.

The tribal regions along the shared border between Pakistan and Afghanistan became safe havens for militants after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 toppled the Taliban regime, sending insurgents across the border.

The US and its western allies have accused Pakistan of 'not doing enough' to prevent attacks on supply routes as well as cross-border operations carried out by insurgents against foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has used this as a pretext to launch drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal regions -- a move that has increased tension between Islamabad and Washington and has triggered anti-American sentiments among the Pakistani people.

CIA and the US military use unmanned drones armed with hellfire missiles to attack Pakistan
Over 500 people -- suspected militants as well as civilians -- have been killed in such attacks.

Pakistan says that the drone attacks undermine the country's sovereignty and trigger public anger, which undermines the country's counter-terrorism efforts.

US drones have carried out at least 33 missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas since the new Pakistani government came to power in March last year.

Pakistan's influential army has repeatedly claimed readiness to defend the country's sovereignty even if it entails clashing with US and NATO forces along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.