Washington, May 5: US Senator Hillary Clinton, Democrats’ Presidential candidature hopeful, has said that Pakistan’s tribal areas were the safe haven of al Qaeda and the Taliban. She said the terrorist organizations were spread in various places in these tribal areas.

“It’s in Pakistan,” said Hillary Clinton while replying to a question if she knew where the primary haven for the Taliban was.

On being asked to name a place, she said: “Well, it’s along the border. And there are a couple of different places. It’s not just one place.”

Admitting that Quetta was the place from where Al Qaeda was commanded and controlled, she said: “But that’s not the only place. I think there may be a concentration of Taliban in Quetta. But because they are primarily Pashtuns, they are all through that area.”

She also blamed the Bush administration for failing to tackle this problem. “If you had more troops committed so that we could prevent the infiltration and their being able to carry out their missions inside Afghanistan,” the Dawn quoted her as saying.

“If we were able to make a stronger case to the newly elected government in Pakistan that their livelihoods and lives depended upon us working together to take out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, we didn’t make that argument.”

Clinton said that the United States should have been supporting the pro-democracy movement in Pakistan. “They just had an election where the religious party lost. Why? Because the Pakistani people do not want to have this creeping terrorism and extremism,” she added.

She agreed with the suggestion that unless the Pakistani government takes action against the Taliban inside Pakistan, the situation will never improve no matter how many American troops were sent there. “I agree with that, but what is the best way to persuade them to do that?” she asked.

She disagreed with the suggestion that the best way to persuade Pakistan to fight terrorism would be to cut off aid. She said financial aid should not be cut for Pakistan because democracy was once again prevailing there.

“We now have a new government there. We have got to make it clear to the new government in Pakistan that we will stand with them, we will support democracy. We have not put all our eggs into Musharraf’s basket,” the Dawn quoted her as saying.

It was in Pakistan’s self-interest to fight the terrorists and that they were not doing so just to please the Americans, she added. (ANI)