Kabul pact: Pakistan's India discomfort makes it hard, says US

President Barack Obama signed a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan and barely hours later Taliban mounted an audacious attack in Kabul that left 11 including five terrorists dead quotThis is hardquot a senior administration official said in a background briefing on the 10year agreement with President Hamid Karzai signed by Obama during a visit to Kabul under cover of darkness on the first anniversary of the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in neighbouring Pakistan President Barack Obamau00a0 quotPakistan is not going to have completely changed the strategic orientation which means that they are not going to be comfortable with a Kabul government that is too closely aligned with Indiaquot he said when asked if the accord on the role of US forces beyond the end of the war in 2014 was going to work This quotmeans that they39re going to be nervous about the Northern Alliance which means that they39re going to be continuing to seek hedgesquot the official said quotSo if you combine all those factors this is still going to be toughquot However Obama himself sounded confident as he told Americans in a highprofile television address from the wartorn nation that he has wound down two unpopular wars since taking office three years ago and the defeat of Al Qaeda is quotwithin reachquot quotMy fellow Americans we have travelled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war Yet here in the predawn darkness of Afghanistan we can see the light of a new day on the horizonquot Shortly after arriving about midnight local time Obama and Karzai inked a pact to designate Afghanistan a major nonNATO ally The agreement says the US will provide aid advisers and support after NATO combat troops leave in 2014 quotThe goal that I set to defeat Al Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild is within reachquot Obama said adding that quotthere will be difficult days ahead The enormous sacrifices of our men and women are not overquot There are around 130000 forces in Afghanistan including around 90000 US forces and 40000 troops from other nations Those forces are scheduled to end combat operations after 2014 about thirteen years after the war began A new Pentagon report noted that USled coalition forces have weakened the Taliban in Afghanistan but terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and endemic corruption still pose tough challenges quotThe Talibanled insurgency39s safe haven in Pakistan as well as the limited capacity of the Afghan Government remain the biggest risks to the process of turning security gains into a durable and sustainable Afghanistanquot the latest semiannual Pentagon report to the Congress Tuesday said Insurgents quotstill operate with impunity from sanctuaries in Pakistanquot the report said quotChallenges remainquot a senior defence official told reporters in a background briefing on the report quotThe most important of those challenges of course remains the sanctuaries in Pakistan and the ability of the Taliban to refit regroup and rearm therequot The Taliban and the Haqqani network use areas in Pakistan39s federally administered tribal areas to attack Afghan and NATO troops quotIt39s Pakistan39s duty as a responsible international country to control all violence that emanates from its borders into other areasquot the official said quotAnd we continue to urge them to do soquot u00a0