ISLAMABAD – Since the Obama administration is said to have presented to Pakistan a dossier on terrorism suspect Faisal Shahzad, including a detailed chart describing his contacts with the Tehreek-I-Taliban Pakistan before his attempt to detonate an explosives-laden vehicle in New York City’s Times Square, Foreign Office said on Wednesday it was not in knowledge of the dossier.
“You better put this question to officials of the Interior Ministry, however, I confirm it to you that Foreign Office has not been consulted so for in this regard,” a spokesperson of Foreign Office told TheNation when asked if the US has presented a dossier on terrorism suspect Faisal Shahzad to Pakistan.
According to American media reports, Senior US officials had held an urgent meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari last week and presented him a dossier on terrorism suspect Faisal Shahzad.
Pakistan denied that TTP was involved in the May 1 bombing attempt in New York. However, authorities in Islamabad took a U-turn from their earlier statement soon after American top officials including Jones and Panetta met with President Asif Ali Zardari and other leaders, and begun to acknowledge that the group provided support to Shahzad.
The evidence was part of a vigorous American warning that there would be “inevitable pressure” on the United States to take action if there was an attack traceable to Pakistan that resulted in US casualties, officials familiar with the talks said.
It is believed that the same warning was delivered last week in a visit to Islamabad by White House National Security Advisor James L. Jones and CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, who said Pakistan needed to intensify its crackdown on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban.
It is important to mention here that, TTP had initially claimed responsibility for the Time Square (failed) bomb plot, however, it backed away from the claim and denied even knowing Shahzad.
According to American media reports, US officials have become convinced that the TTP, after primarily focusing on attacks against the Pakistani government, is increasingly seeking ways to strike US targets. The group has formed closer links with Al-Qaeda and has seemed to adopt the terrorist networkÂ’s goal of striking the United States on its own territory.
“We have been lucky in the past, but our luck will run out and in the future, we are likely to face successful attacks,” said a senior US intelligence official, who, like several others, was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, stated Los Angeles Times.
The evidence, which included photographs of militants suspected of assisting Shahzad, was shown to Zardari and Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the Chief of Army Staff, along with other Pakistani officials, US officials said, according to the newspaper.
According to a news report of the same US newspaper, Jones and Panetta were attempting to convince the Pakistanis that the US had hard evidence that Shahzad had received support from the Pakistani Taliban, the officials said.
The chart, which was assembled by US intelligence agencies, “showed who all he had contacts with,” one official said, and drew “clear links between Faisal Shahzad and the TTP leaders in Pakistan.”
The White House originally considered warning Pakistan about the consequences of another attack in a confidential letter from President Obama to Zardari, but it decided to dispatch Jones and Panetta to deliver the message in person.
In addition to that visit, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned publicly in the days after the Times Square attempt that Pakistan faced “very severe consequences” in the event of another plot originating in Pakistan. Her comment provoked a strong backlash in Pakistan.
It is pertinent to mention here that on May 14, US and Pakistan had agreed that individual incidents like New YorkÂ’s Time Square Bomb incident would not affect the ties between the two countries and both sides would continue working together for the elimination of terror.
The affirmation to this effect was made during a telephonic call made by US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a week earlier.