‘Pakistan LeT admission not a surprise’

A top US Senator has said that former president Pervez Musharraf’s admission that Pakistan aided and trained terror groups like LeT is “not surprising” and the link between the 26/11 attackers and some elements in the Pakistani government cannot be credibly denied.

“I am not surprised...I think that the evidence about ties between some aspects of the Pakistani government with LeT in connection with the attack in Mumbai in 2008 is pretty hard to deny,” said Senator Tim Kaine, an influential Democratic Senator in the two power Senate committees of foreign relations and armed service.

“When you get into the intel (intelligence information) and explore, you get the questions how high the ties were and how officially they were sanctioned. But there were definitely ties (between Pakistani government and LeT),” said Mr Kaine who visited the 26/11 terror attack sites in Mumbai in October 2014.

“The connection between those attackers and at least some elements in the Pakistani government, I do not think they can be credibly denied,” Mr Kaine told Defence Writers Group when asked about Mr Musharraf’s remarks that Pakistan supported and helped terrorist organisations like LeT.

Last week Mr Kaine met Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif when the latter visited the US Capitol and met members of the powerful Senate foreign relations committee.

War against terrorism, continued presence of terrorist safe havens was one of the major topics of discussion with the visiting Pakistani leader, he said, but noted that Pakistan under Mr Sharif is moving in a different direction as far as war against terrorism is concerned.

“My sense from that visit (of Sharif) and from a trip to Pakistan (in October 2014) is that it has been a very hard (US-Pak) relationship after the death of (Osama) bin Laden. But I think the arch of it is going in a better direction,” the Senator from Virginia said.