CENTCOM chief to visit Pakistan soon

The Commander of the Unites States Central Command, en. James Mattis has said that he is traveling to Pakistan within the next 10 days or so, where he would engage in discussions with Pakistans military leadership, in a bid to streamline some of the issues cropped up in the recent part, particularly after the NATO airstrike on Salala check-post in Mohmand on Nov 26 that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.While speaking during a hearing of the US Senates Armed Services Committee on Defense Authorizations for 2013 Tuesday, he, however, did acknowledge that border coordination with Pakistan at different levels had been continuing after the Salala firing incident. Pakistan had initially withdrawn troops from border coordination posts before sending them back after hectic consultations between US, Afghanistan and Pakistan.Responding to a question of Senator Richard Blumenthal about efforts undertaken by Pakistan for stopping the flow of IEDs from tribal areas to Afghanistan, Gen. Mattis said that Pakistani tribal areas have a unique status and there area number of factors for transportation of IEDs.My impression is that Pakistani security forces are not doing enough, Senator Blumenthal asserted. Ill have to check whether the Pakistani forces are doing enough or not, before getting back to you about it, Gen. Mattis replied.Ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain, in his opening remarks on the occasion, also expressed concern about the alleged support of terrorist networks like the Haqqani network by Pakistans intelligence agencies. This practice, he believed, was continuing despite US demands from Pakistan to check it without any delay. Adminiral William McRaven, Commander of the US Special Operations Command, alluded to the recent reports of a deadlock between US and Afghan authorities over the issue of handing-over of prisoners and night-raids. We remain concerned about the capability of Afghanistan in handling the prisoners as they are demanding now, he said.We think night raids are the best option for going after the militants because it minimises the chance of harming civilian individuals. We dont understands why president Karazai is against the night raids because these have Afghans in the lead during such operations, he went on to add.The CENTCOM chief, Gen. Jmaes Mattis, in response to another question said that the US did not have a designated facility now where they could put the detainees arrested from the battlefield. Decision to not shift any new detainees to Gunatanamo is a policy decision, he said adding that the decision on where to put new detainees, taken in custody from Afghanistan or Pakistan, requires a government to government agreement.On the questions from Senators about the alleged threats emanating from Iran, Gen. Mattis said that the Iranian threat is on four lines, including their nuclear program, long range missile ballistic threat, maritime threat and and their secret services and proxies that they support. These concerns are for US and our friends in that region but we are trying to check and contain each of these threats from Iran, he assured.- Contributed by Awais Saleem, Dunya News correspondent in Washington, DC