‘Severe Consequences’ if Terror Attack in US Traced to Pak: Hillary

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned of ‘severe consequences’ if a successful extremist attack in America were tracked back to Pakistan, said media reports.

“We’ve gotten more cooperation. It’s been a real sea change in the commitment we have seen from the Pakistani government. We want more, we expect more,” Clinton was quoted as saying in an interview with CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ to be aired on Sunday.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban has claimed responsibility for a failed bomb attack at New York’s Times Square. If this proved, it will be the outfit’s first act in the US.

In the case, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, who said that he acted alone, has been charged with driving the crude homemade bomb into Midtown Manhattan.

Despite Faisal’s claim, investigators found possible links to the Pakistani Taliban and a Kashmiri Islamist group.

Without elaborating, Clinton said in the interview, “We’ve made it very clear that if – heaven-forbid – an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences.”

Faisal has confessed receiving bomb-making training in a Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold in Pakistan, as per prosecutors.

He has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and trying to kill and maim people, as well as other counts.

Shahzad is yet to appear in court as he has waived his US legal rights and is talking to investigators.

The US sees Pakistan’s effort against militants as crucial to its fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan and has about 200 military personnel in Pakistan, including Special Operations forces on a training mission.

“We also have a much better relationship, military to military, intelligence to intelligence, government to government than we had before,” Clinton was quoted as saying.

“I think that there was a double game going on in the previous years, where we got a lot of lip service but very little produced.”

“We’ve got a lot produced. We have seen the killing or capturing of a great number of the leadership of significant terrorist groups and we’re going (to) continue that,” she was quoted as saying.

(Based on internet reports)