NWA op, Indo-US arms deal top issues

ISLAMABAD CIA Chief Leon Edward Panetta would soon visit Pakistan to pressurise Islamabad to do more in its war against terror and urge top leadership to stay cool to get the multibillion dollars Indo-US arms deal through. Well-placed sources informed TheNation on Wednesday that Panetta, who is expected to visit Pakistan during this week, would demand of Pakistans political and military leadership to launch military operation against terror networks in North Waziristan Agency. Sources were of the view that the visit of the CIA Chief at this point of time was aimed to highlight the terror threats from NWA and urge Pakistani leadership to stay cool over the Indo-US arms deal and Kashmir issue with the view that President Obama could make landmark visit to India in November. Sources did not attach much significance to the latest US claims that the upsurge in US drone strikes on militants in the countrys northwest sought to disrupt attacks on European cities. Military sources, however, dismissed these media reports as very speculative, saying there was absolutely no intelligence or information that militants had gathered in North Waziristan and were plotting attacks as claimed by the NATO-led ISAF. ISAF in a statement issued on Wednesday said that an airstrike in east Afghanistan has killed a senior al-Qaeda commander who coordinated attacks through foreign fighters and arranged for them to travel to the region and an al-Qaeda explosives expert. It said that Qurayshi helped foreigners travel to Afghanistan to fight in the growing insurgency, ISAF said, besides managing attacks by groups of these fighters in the provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. The missile that targeted Qurayshi also killed al Qaeda explosive expert Abu Atta al Kuwaiti and several foreign fighters of Arab origin. The attack happened on Saturday but the names of the men killed were not released until Wednesday. A US official on Wednesday also claimed that Al-Qaeda had evolved a plot to attack targets in Western Europe and the United States.

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