During a trip to Afghanistan last week, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta chastised Pakistan for its ongoing support for the Haqqani Network – an insurgency organization that is closely tied to al Qaeda. The Haqqani Network has long been a proxy of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID), which has denied American requests to limit the insurgents’ operations. The Pakistani-backed Haqqanis have even been brazen enough to launch attacks on the American embassy in Kabul.
With respect to the ISID-Haqqani relationship, Panetta warned: “we are reaching the limits of our patience.” Panetta complained, according to the Associated Press, that Pakistan allows “terrorists to use their country as a safety net in order to conduct their attacks on our forces.”
