US claims evidence ties Haqqani network to Pakistan

The US ambassador to Islamabad said in remarks broadcast Saturday that there is evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistani government, a charge that could raise tensions in an already strained anti-terror alliance between Washington and Islamabad. The US and Nato blame the Haqqani network for many of the attacks in Afghanistan, including this week's strike on the US Embassy.
The group affiliated with both the Taliban and al Qaida and its army of several thousand fighters is widely assumed to be based just over the Afghan border in Pakistan. US officials have long suspected links between the Pakistan military and the Haqqani network.
But needing Pakistani co-operation to beat al Qaida and stabilise Afghanistan, they rarely say so publicly and as directly as Ambassador Cameron Munter did in an interview with Radio Pakistan that was broadcast Saturday. "The attack that took place in Kabul a few days ago, that was the work of the Haqqani Network," Munter said during the interview. "And the facts, that we have said in the past, (is) that there are problems, there is evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistan government. This is something that must stop." The army and the government were not available for comment.