Powell In Pakistan For Talks On Nukes, Al-Qaeda

Powell flew into the capital Islamabad on board a U.S. military plane after a one-day visit to Kabul, where he met President Hamid Karzai, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Kicking off his latest South Asia tour in New Delhi Monday and Tuesday, Powell urged Pakistan to get tougher with Taliban fighters hiding along its western borders, crack down on "rebels" fighting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir and put an end to nuclear proliferation.

Washington would not be "satisfied" until the network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that leaked nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea was completely rooted out.

Powell said Musharraf was "as determined as we are" to put an end to proliferation of nuclear technology.

"But we can’t be satisfied until the entire network is gone, branch and root," he said.

Khan confessed in February to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea in a 12 page document submitted to President General Pervez Musharraf.

But owing to his services to national security, the President gave the scientist, called the father of the nuclear bomb, pardon without putting him on trial for the crimes he admitted.

Raids

Powell praised Pakistan’s latest deadly raid against Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters hiding along its rugged northwest border with Afghanistan.

Pakistani forces lost 15 troops and killed at least 24 Al-Qaeda and Taliban suspected militants Tuesday in their bloodiest encounter to date with the suspects and locals sheltering them in the remote tribal district of South Waziristan, the military said.

U.S. military commanders have said the Pakistani and U.S. forces, operating on separate sides of the border, are creating a "hammer and anvil" scenario to trap hundreds of Al-Qaeda fighters.

Pakistan’s latest offensive came after Powell urged it to step up its hunt for militants criss-crossing the frontier.

"We have been doing everything we can to encourage Pakistani leaders especially President Musharraf to be more active (in patrolling the border and preventing infiltrations by militants)," Powell said.

On March6 , an Afghan official said that Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden had escaped a recent Pakistani manhunt operation.

The external Pashto-language service of Iranian state radio reported Saturday, February28 , quoting an "informed source" that Bin Laden had been "captured in a tribal area of Pakistan" weeks ago.

On Sunday, February22 , the British Sunday Express reported that U.S. and British special forces have cornered Bin Laden in a mountainous area in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghanistan borders.

It quoted a "U.S. intelligence source" as saying that Bin Laden "is boxed in " and they were "absolutely confident" he could not escape.

But U.S. military officials have repeatedly refused to comment on speculation surrounding Bin Laden’s fate.