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Pakistan must deal with Taliban threat: Petraeus

* US Commander says more coalition troops needed in Afghanistan

LONDON: Pakistan must deal with the threat from the Taliban to its very existence, US military commander David Petraeus said on Monday.

Petraeus said Pakistani officials, including new President Asif Ali Zardari, increasingly recognised the importance of the threat posed by the Taliban.

“This is a threat to Pakistan’s very existence and it is one with which they must deal. Now, they can deal with it in a comprehensive manner,” he said after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London.

Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been strained after American forces launched a series of raids against the Taliban inside Pakistani territory.

Petraeus, who takes over as head of the US Central Command in Afghanistan next month after running American operations in Iraq, said he would turn his attention to helping Pakistan make a sustained commitment to deal with the terrorists.

Petraeus, who also met British Defence Secretary Des Browne and Defence chief Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, said he had discussed the need for more coalition troops in Afghanistan.

Troops: “What we talked about is the general need for more coalition forces, noting that the UK has actually doubled the size of its force over the course of the last two years,” he said.

“I think it is up to the coalition to determine how to source the forces. This is a job for the NATO authorities, the greater coalition, for national authorities,” he added.

Patraeus said he expected fighting with the Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan to continue through the harsh winter “perhaps a bit more than we have seen in the past”.

“We are going to endeavour to continue a higher level of operational tempo throughout, so that there is not the lull in the fighting season, but that we continue in fact to take the fight to the enemy,” he said. reuters

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