US to scrap $300m in aid to Pakistan

Washington : The US military plans to cancel $300 million in aid to Pakistan due to Islamabad’s lack of “decisive actions” in support of American strategy in the region, the Pentagon said yesterday. The US has been pushing Pakistan to crack down on militant safe havens in the country, and announced a freeze on aid at the beginning of the year that an official said could be worth almost $2 billion. The Defence Department has sought to cut aid by $300m “due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy,” Lieutenant Colonel Kone Faulkner said in an email to AFP.

“We continue to press Pakistan to indiscriminately target all terrorist groups,” Faulkner said, adding that the latest aid cut request was pending Congressional approval. The announcement came days before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to visit Islamabad to meet new Prime Minister Imran Khan. Pakistan has fought fierce campaigns against homegrown militant groups, and says it has lost thousands of lives and spent billions of dollars in its long war on extremism.

But US officials accuse Islamabad of ignoring or even collaborating with groups, which attack Afghanistan from safe havens along the border between the two countries. The White House believes that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and other military bodies have long helped fund and arm the Taliban for ideological reasons, but also to counter rising Indian influence in Afghanistan. It also believes that a Pakistani crackdown could be pivotal in deciding the outcome of the long-running war in Afghanistan.