Taliban's spate of bloody strikes in Pak, turning policy-making a nightmare for Obama
16 Oct 2009, 1218 Hrs

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Washington, Oct.16 The recent spate of audacious terror attacks in Pakistan has increased problems for US President Barack Obama, as he is finding it hard to come out with a policy for Afghanistan.

The terror attacks carried out by the Taliban were clearly aimed at telling Washington that the outlawed outfit is determined to fight back the foreign forces despite the death of the Pakistan Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Obama is torn between following the advice of his military advisers to deploy more troops in Afghanistan or heed the advice of political advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden, who are of the view that the Taliban should be give a political role in Afghanistan and the US should focus on targeting the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan, Fox news reports.

Experts also believe that the current scenario in Pakistan, where militants strike at will, has made Obama's task more difficult after he came out with a revamped AfPak strategy earlier this year.

"The two countries are closely tied, the border between the two is porous and certainly there's cooperation between radicals in both Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Bernard Finel, a senior fellow at the American Security Project.

"Of course the Afghanistan Taliban is based in Pakistan right now, and that's part of the reason why we see the spate of attacks," Finel added.

Finel seconded Biden's view that sending more troops to Afghanistan would serve no purpose, and also highlighted that even if the Obama administration decides to indulge in counterterrorism operations in Pakistan, it would have its own implications.

"Nonetheless, our ability to influence Pakistan is pretty limited. It's a very big country, large military, proud population, strong nationalist sentiment and our leverage there is not strong," he said. (ANI)

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