Clinton, the most senior US official to visit Pakistan since US Navy SEALS killed the Al-Qaeda leader this month, appeared to be trying to smooth over strains, repeating that there was no evidence that any senior Pakistani officials had known of Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
But she also said she had asked Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani as well as army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani to do more to fight militants.
“This was an especially important visit because we have reached a turning point,” Clinton told reporters, after meeting the Pakistani officials with chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen.
“We look to Pakistan, to the government of Pakistan to take decisive steps in the days ahead.”
Clinton and other American officials in Islamabad declined to say what those steps were.
The discovery of the Al-Qaeda leader in a garrison town just 50 km away from Islamabad, on May 2 raised fresh doubts about Pakistan’s reliability as a partner in the US-led war on militancy. Clinton said Pakistani officials had told her “someone, somewhere” had been providing support for Bin Laden in Pakistan, but reiterated there was no evidence of any sort of complicity by senior government officials.
“We are trying to untangle the puzzle of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad,” she said. “But I want to stress again, that we have absolutely no reason to believe that anyone in the highest level of the government knew that.” Clinton has emphasized the need to continue working closely with Pakistan.
The Pakistan government welcomed the death of Bin Laden but was outraged and embarrassed by the secret raid in Abbottabad, where Bin Laden had lived for years, as a breach of its sovereignty.
Clinton was unapologetic over the raid. Instead, she noted that Pakistan has a high concentration of militant leaders. “For the past decade, many of the world’s most vicious terrorists, including Al-Qaeda’s most important leaders, have been living in Pakistan,” she said.
She said the United States was attempting to split the Taleban in Afghanistan from Al-Qaeda, and encourage those militants to reconcile with the Afghan government. While acknowledging Pakistan’s interests in a stable and secure Afghanistan, she noted that Pakistan needs to be more helpful.
“Many of the leaders of the Taleban continue to live in Pakistan,” she said. “Pakistan has the responsibility to help us help Afghanistan by preventing insurgents from waging war from Pakistani territory.”
There has been scant evidence of militancy abating despite billions of dollars in US aid. On Friday, government jets attacked militants in the northwest, killing 26 of them and destroying dozens of their hide-outs, officials said. There was no independent confirmation of the toll.
A US official said Washington had seen some signs of improved Pakistani cooperation, including the return of the tail section of a helicopter that crashed during the night-time raid in Abbottabad and access to Bin Laden’s wives.
In a further apparent move to reduce tension, Pakistani authorities have agreed to allow the CIA to send a forensic team to scour Bin Laden’s compound for clues. Pakistani television said US officials visited the compound on Friday.
A US official in Washington said the forensic experts would look for evidence hidden in walls or buried under floors, but there was no guarantee they would find anything.
Many US lawmakers, skeptical that Pakistani officials did not know of Bin Laden’s presence, want to cut US aid to Pakistan, which the White House views as vital to counter-terrorism and to hopes of stabilizing Afghanistan.
A day before coming to Pakistan, Clinton said working with Pakistan was a strategic necessity for the United States, even as she pressed Islamabad to act more decisively to counter militancy.
“The United States and Pakistan have worked together to kill or capture many ... terrorists here on Pakistani soil,” she said. “This could not have been done without close cooperation between our governments, our military and our intelligence agencies. But we both recognize there is still much more work required, and it is urgent.”
