US concerned about IEDs in Pakistani tribal areas

The United States administration has once again express extreme concern over the safe heavens of terrorists as well as the production of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Pakistani tribal areas. The US Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey Tuesday said that the issue had been raised with Pakistan for controlling the flow of IEDs from tribal areas to Afghanistan, for usage against American and NATO forces.While appearing before the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee, Secretary Panetta agreed that IEDs were causing destruction for US forces in Afghanistan, and blamed it on the unchecked supply from Pakistan.“The supply network of these IEDs, in some ways, are related to the safe heavens in Pakistan that continue to supply a lot of this. That is an area that we have urged the Pakistanis to address, because we think that this whole issue needs to be addressed, if we are going to be effective in trying to cut back on IEDs”, Panetta stated.When a committee member, Senator Kay Hagan, asked Secretary Panetta about the steps being taken to put pressure on Pakistan’s network of the distribution of ammonium nitrates (used in IEDs), he said “we have made very clear to them that where these threats emanate from”.“We have identified locations. We have directed them to specific sites, we have urged them to take steps; in some cases they have, in some cases they wind up there too late. But we are continuing to impress upon them that they have got to be part of the answer to dealing with this issue”, Panetta explained.Senator Richard Blumenthal, another member of the committee, hoped that work was being done “to discourage the Pakistanis from permitting the fertilizer and ammonium nitrate crossing the border, going into these roadside bombs (IEDs)”.Responding to the query, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey assured the members that necessary measures were being taken in this regard. “I just assure you. We are seized with this”, he observed.“Our relations with Pakistan have been somewhat challenged. They are improving and this is one of the points of friction between us that we have to get at”, he conceded.- Contributed by Awais Saleem, Dunya News correspondent in Washington, DC