Washington, May 19(ANI): US senators have urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Robert Gates to ensure that Pakistan was doing its utmost in the ongoing war on terror before disbursing further US security aid to the country.
The lawmakers, all Democrats, wrote Clinton and Gates a letter in the wake of the US raid in which Navy SEALs found and killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Pakistan's Abbottabad city.
Finding bin Laden in a Pakistani military town "indicates, at a minimum, a lack of commitment by the Pakistani military to aggressive cooperation with the United States," The News quoted the group, which includes Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, as saying in the letter.
"This is particularly concerning as the Congress again considers increasing security assistance to Pakistan," they added.
Pakistan received a total of 2.7 billion dollars in aid and reimbursements from Washington in the fiscal year 2010, making it the third-largest recipient of US aid after Afghanistan and Israel.
"We recognise the strategic importance of Pakistan. However, we cannot overlook the logical conclusion of recent events, which is to question whether or not the Pakistani security establishment is ardently working to prevent terrorist groups from operating on Pakistani soil," the lawmakers said.
The senators called for reviewing Pakistan's efforts to end its support for extremist groups, prevent al-Qaeda, the Taliban and others from operating on Pakistani soil, and bolster its counter-terrorism and anti money-laundering laws.
"We believe that conducting this assessment will be crucial for the Congress to determine whether to provide the full range of security assistance," they wrote in the letter. (ANI)
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