Obama says Pakistan, Afghanistan working with US to battle terrorist groups

August 17th, 2009 Obama: Afghanistan will be neither quick nor easyPHOENIX — President Barack Obama says U.S. troops in Afghanistan are working to secure polling places so this week's elections can go forward and Afghans can decide their future.

July 24th, 2009 Obama: 'Victory' not right word for AfghanistanWASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says he's uncomfortable using the word "victory" to describe the United States' goal in Afghanistan. He says the U.S.

July 2nd, 2009 Obama to reassess US troop levels in AfghanistanWASHINGTON — President Barack Obama tells The Associated Press that he will reassess the possible need for additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the Afghan national elections in August.

May 9th, 2009 US troops in Afghanistan won't be sent to PakistanCAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — There are no plans to deploy U.S. ground troops to Pakistan, U.S.

April 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has invited his counterparts from Pakistan and Afghanistan, Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai, to discuss the 'Af-Pak' policy here next month, a media report said Tuesday. The May 6-7 talks will elevate to summit level a trilateral exchange begun by the administration with senior aides from each government in late February, the Washington Post reported.

April 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Expressing serious concern over the rising extremism in the country, the US Central Command chief General David Petraeus has said that religious extremists operating along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border pose a direct threat to Pakistan's existence. Addressing a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting on Obama's revamped policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan General Petraeus said that the outlawed groups such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda based on the Pakistani soil along the Afghan border are posing more serious threat to Pakistan's existence.

April 1st, 2009 NEW YORK - US President Obama's strategy review for Afghanistan and Pakistan, unveiled last week, finally focuses the government's attention and resources where they are most needed, says an editorial in the New York Times. According to Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, after years, the president has recognized that the key to US national security is defeating Al Qaeda, and that to do so we must address both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

March 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The new US policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan clearly indicates that Washington is more concerned than before about the impending crisis in the region, and wants to root out insurgency from its core by adopting a more 'regional approach'. According to Senior Research Fellow for South Asia at the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, Lisa Curtis, President Barack Obama has sent a strong signal that U.S.

March 28th, 2009 Washington, March (IANS) The US is hoping to destroy terrorist safe havens in Pakistan with a combination of aggressive military operations from the Afghanistan side and what one senior official called 'energetic working' with Islamabad. Warning that Al Qaeda was planning attacks on the US from its safe haven in Pakistan, President Barack Obama Friday unveiled a new strategy to 'disrupt, defeat and dismantle' the Al Qaeda terrorist organization and the Taliban in the two countries.

March 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama Friday announced his long-awaited new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying the situation in Afghanistan has become 'increasingly perilous'. Obama said that Afghanistan could not be allowed to come under the control of the Taliban or the Al Qaeda, which he said, was plotting new attacks on the United States from safe havens in Pakistan.

March 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama outlined his administration's new strategy in Afghanistan Friday, saying a major goal will be to shut down the Al Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan and Pakistan through a bolstered troop presence. 'We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future,' Obama said.

March 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - British Defense Minister John Hutton has said that the key to success in the 'War on terror' in Afghanistan lies in rooting out the command and control centers of Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups operating from Pakistan. Talking to media persons before meeting with US Defense Secretary Robert M.

March 5th, 2009 LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for terrorists in Pakistan 'to be brought under control, arrested and brought to trial'. Speaking after Tuesday's terrorist attack wounding six Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, Brown also revealed that the 'vast majority' of Al Qaeda militants are now in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

March 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - The havens carved out by the Taliban and other insurgents in Pakistan have become the 'most worrisome' part of the US-led war in Afghanistan, says US Defence Secretary Robert Gates. Washington had a similar perch in Pakistan when US and Pakistani officials supported Afghanistan's mujahideen rebels against the Soviet Union in the 1980s - 'and let me tell you, it made a big difference', he said Sunday.

February 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Warning Pakistan that US would not tolerate terrorist safe havens in its tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan, President Barack Obama has advocated a regional approach to root them out. 'There is no doubt that, in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) region of Pakistan, in the mountainous regions along the border of Afghanistan, that there are safe havens where terrorists are operating,' he said at his first White House press conference Monday night.