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News – World: Brown pledges to help Pakistan

WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.

Original Post Date: 2008-12-14 Time: 11:00:12  Posted By: Jan

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged on Sunday to help Pakistan tackle terrorism on its soil after meeting President Asif Ali Zardari to discuss security in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

Brown said Britain would work with the government in Islamabad to ensure terrorists were denied safe havens in Pakistan, and pledged 6-million pounds (about R78-million) to help it tackle militancy.

“Through these measures we hope to do more to break the chain of terror that links the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of the UK and other countries around the world,” Brown said during a press conference with Zardari.

Brown was in Islamabad after visiting India and Afghanistan on a tour of the region to discuss security in the wake of the devastating Mumbai attacks, which New Delhi has blamed on “elements” in Pakistan.

He said Pakistan and Britain must work together to “do everything in our power to cut off terrorism,” claiming that three-quarters of the most serious terrorist plots investigated by the British authorities had links to Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

But he also stressed that Pakistan was itself a victim of terrorism, having suffered 50 suicide attacks in 2008 alone.

“I think it’s right that we have to help Pakistan to root out terrorism in its own country… all of us suffer when terrorists are active and are able to impose their will,” he said.

At least one British national died in November’s attacks on India’s financial centre, and Brown said he had asked Zardari to allow British police to question Pakistani suspects if they wanted to do so.

“I asked (Indian Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh this morning if he would allow the British police, if they chose to so do, to interview the person arrested as one of the suspects… I have similarly asked President Zardari,” he said.

“We all have an interest in discovering what lies behind the Mumbai outrages.”

Pakistan has arrested a number of suspected militants in the wake of the attacks, including two leaders of the banned group Lashkar-e-Taiba, while the lone surviving gunman, a Pakistani national, is being held in India.

Brown’s visit here came hours after Islamabad said India had twice violated Pakistani air space on Saturday, drawing a swift denial from New Delhi.

Pakistan said Indian jets had flown over the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir and the eastern city of Lahore, where the banned militant group India accuses of involvement in the Mumbai attacks is active.

But Zardari sought Sunday to downplay the incident, saying the Indian fighter jets only “slightly entered Pakistani soil.”

Relations between India and Pakistan have plummeted in the wake of the devastating Mumbai assault. Gunmen ran riot in the city, killing 163 people during a 60-hour siege.

India called Pakistan the “epicentre” of terrorism and demanded it do more to crack down on militant groups on its soil, but ruled out military action.

Pakistan has arrested key leaders of Let and shut down a charity accused of being a front for the group, freezing its assets and detaining dozens of members.

But it says it will not hand over any suspects to India, saying New Delhi has not yet provided any evidence implicating Pakistanis in the attacks.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain, and Brown’s visit is part of a concerted international effort to ease the pressure between the two nations.

Britain has previously urged India and Pakistan, whose long-running dispute over divided Kashmir is a fault line of geopolitical significance, to work together in the wake of the devastation.

Brown’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband said earlier in 2008 that “violent extremism is a threat to the very integrity of both of those countries.”

Nearly 1 500 people have died in bomb blasts, most of them suicide attacks, since the Pakistani Taliban launched a terror campaign after the deadly military raid on the Al-Qaeda linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=nw20081214132239356C301770