US facing dilemma in Pak: Holbrooke

The Obama administration is facing a dilemma with respect to Pakistan as unlike Afghanistan it cannot send its troops there to fight Al-Qaeda and Taliban and needs to find other means, top US envoy for the region Richard Holbrooke has said.

The Obama administration is facing a dilemma with respect to Pakistan as unlike Afghanistan it cannot send its troops there to fight Al-Qaeda and Taliban and needs to find other means, top US envoy for the region Richard Holbrooke has said.

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"The dilemma is that the leadership of both al-Qaeda and Taliban are in a neighbouring country (of Afghanistan) where our troops cannot fight. And therefore we have to find other means, working for the Pakistanis and other means, to deal with the groups...," Holbrooke, the Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said.

If the US was to abandon Afghanistan or pull out troops, the Obama Administration believes that the Taliban and al-Qaeda would win an enormous international victory which would inspire tens of thousands of potential 'jihadists', shift the balance in a very negative way and give a much larger terrain for al-Qaeda to play in.

"The Pakistanis were very instrumental in creating the Taliban, as you well know, in the period after the United States abandoned Afghanistan in 1989, which history will record as one of the great mistakes of American foreign policy," Holbrooke said in an interview to the popular Charlie Rose show of the PBS.

Asked what impact has been in Pakistan due to some very high-profile US visits in recent weeks, he said that is yet to be determined. But argued the US is making progress in the region and Pakistan is now more receptive.