WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The United States said Monday Pakistan had taken a conscious decision to join the fight against terrorism and would stay in the fight even if the current Pakistani government is changed.
Pakistan is ruled by President Pervez Musharraf, a general who joined the U.S.-led war on terror after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
But political analysts, the U.S. media and unnamed government sources have often expressed the fear that Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism does not go very deep and that a change of government may also change Pakistan's position on this issue.
"It's such a hypothetical situation," State Department's deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told a briefing in Washington.
"We believe that President Musharraf -- or we don't believe -- we know that President Musharraf is serious about his commitment to fight terror, that his government is resolutely behind him," said Ereli.
"I think Pakistan has made a strategic decision, if you will, that fighting terror is in its vital interests, and it will continue, will continue to act on that with that in mind," he added.
Such questions are being raised regularly both in the United States and Pakistan since Dec. 14, when Musharraf survived the first attempt on his life. A U.S. electronic device jammed the remote control that the assassins were using to denote bombs under his car. The bombs exploded less than a minute after his motorcade crossed the bridge where the explosives had been hidden.
Disappointed, but not discouraged, the militants made another attempt on the Christmas Day. They rammed two explosive-fitted cars into his motorcade. Fifteen people died, including 12 members of his security detail, although the government still insists that most of the victims were passing by.
Both the attempts took place on the 18-mile-long route that Musharraf traverses everyday between his military residence -- he is still the chief the Pakistan Army -- and his office in Islamabad. The army house, as his official residence is known, is in Rawalpindi, a city adjacent to the Pakistani capital.
After the two attempts, media in both Pakistan and the United States have speculated that such close attacks on his life could not have been arranged without assistance from someone in Musharraf's inner circles, someone who is aware of his daily scheduled which is otherwise kept secret.
Musharraf has many enemies, in and outside his government and also in neighboring Afghanistan. Religious extremists, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are unhappy with him for offering bases to the United States for operations against Kabul's former Taliban rulers who were once allied with Pakistan.
There are others, both in religious parties and the Pakistani establishment, who are not happy with Musharraf's efforts to peacefully settle the 56-year-old Kashmir dispute with India and see it as a sellout.
Such apprehensions, apparently, have not raised deep concerns in the State Department -- at least that's what Ereli indicated. Asked if two attempts on Musharraf's life in less than two weeks worry the United States about the overall security situation in Pakistan, Ereli said, "I think, the cardinal point ... is that the United States and Pakistan are allies in the war on terror, and we continue to work closely and productively in fighting this threat, which endangers us all equally."
The United States, he said, strongly condemned the latest attacks on Musharraf. "These attacks further demonstrate that Pakistan faces serious problems with extremists and terrorists and we -- we stand ready, as always, to assist the Pakistanis in confronting this threat. Anything that we can provide to help them, we will."
Ereli said Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to Musharraf on Friday and "expressed our great relief at his safety and well being, expressed our condolences for the loss of life and again, (and) reiterated our strong support for Pakistan's efforts in the war on terror."
Asked if the attacks would make it more difficult for Musharraf to accomplish what the United States wants him to do, Ereli said he would not like to get into "an analysis of the Pakistani domestic political situation."
"If you're looking for signs, the important sign for us is cooperation in the war on terror, exchange of information, law enforcement cooperation, working against the financial networks of terrorists, border security -- all of those indicators are in the plus column with Pakistan. So that is something to, I think, weigh heavily in your thinking about things."
