US to withhold $70 million aid for Pakistan

US to withhold $70 million aid for Pakistan

A crisis in relations looked set to deepen after a US House-Senate negotiating panel agreed to freeze $700 million in US aid to Pakistan until it gives assurances it is helping fight the spread of improvised explosive devices in the region.

Pakistan is one of the largest recipients of US foreign aid, and the cutback announced is only a small proportion of the billions in civil and military assistance it gets each year.

But it could presage greater cuts as calls grow in the United States to penalise Islamabad for failing to act against militant groups and, at worst, helping them, following the secret US raid on a Pakistan military town in which al Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden was killed.

Home-made bombs or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are among militants’ most effective weapons against US and coalition troops in Afghanistan as they struggle to fight a resurgent Taliban insurgency.

Many are made using ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer smuggled across the border from Pakistan. The freeze on US aid was agreed as part of a defense bill that is expected to be passed this week.

The United States wants "assurances that Pakistan is countering improvised explosive devices in their country that are targeting our coalition forces", Representative Howard McKeon, a House Republican, told reporters.

The United States has allocated some $20 billion in security and economic aid to Pakistan since 2001, much of it in the form of reimbursements for assistance in fighting militants.

But US lawmakers have expressed increasing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts in the war.

There have been numerous proposals to make US aid to Pakistan conditional on more cooperation in fighting militants such as the Haqqani network Washington believes operate out of Pakistan and battle US troops in Afghanistan.

But Pakistan’s civilian leaders have in the past warned against aid cuts, saying it would only harden public opinion against the United States.

It says it is doing all it can to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban and has lost thousands of soldiers since it joined the U.S.-led war in 2001, some of them at the hands of coalition troops.

Islamabad has accused NATO of deliberately killing 24 Pakistani soldiers in an air strike near the Afghan border last month and shut down supplies for foreign troops in Afghanistan in anger.

The decision to freeze aid could prompt Pakistan to harden its stance towards Washington.

"I think the Pakistan side will understand the type of signal that is coming, which shows it’s not only a question of aid," said former general and security analyst Talat Masood.

"The whole attitude of the US and the relationship will be affected by these measures because they know Pakistan will not be in a position to control the smuggling."

U.S. lawmakers said that many Afghan bombs are made with fertilizer smuggled by militants across the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

"The vast majority of the material used to make improvised explosive devices used against U.S. forces in Afghanistan originates from two fertilizer factories inside Pakistan," Senator John McCain, a Republican, said in the Senate last week.

A Congressional Research Service report in October said the Pakistani factories, owned by one of the country’s biggest companies, Pakarab, have been producing over 300,000 metric tonnes of ammonium nitrate per year since 2004.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=6065

Posted by Ahmer Gul Khan on Dec 13 2011. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan, USA, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry