The top US Intelligence official has said the next attack on America could come out of the Al Qaeda organised in Pakistan. He said President Pervez Musharraf needs to do more to come to terms with the terror outfits trying to “rebuild” in the country.The Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Mike McConnell, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “My belief is the attack most likely would be planned and come out of the leadership (al- Qaeda) in Pakistan”.“The camps that have been established in Pakistan are in an area that has never been governed by any power, because it’s such rugged country and has fierce individual tribal interests. “And so to the best of our knowledge the senior leadershipis there, and they are attempting to reestablish and rebuild training camps,” McConnel said.He told lawmakers Pakistan could do more in coming to terms with Al Qaeda and the Taliban and the purpose of the visit of the US Vice-President Dick Cheney to Islamabad was to impress upon the fact that it has to be “more aggressive” in going after it. “We believe they could do more. And the issue of being elected for the next term is the issue that the president of Pakistan is wresting with,” McConnell said. At the Senate Armed Services Committee panel hearing, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton asked McConnell whether “Pakistan is capable of doing more with respect to Taliban and Al Qaeda than they have currently done; and President Musharraf’s hold on power within Pakistan is firm enough for him to take such additional steps?”McConnell said with the signing of the agreement with the tribal leaders in the frontier area, the “capabilities of Al Qaeda for training and so on increased. Therefore, the vice president’s visit and others visit (is) to make the case that we have to be more aggressive in going after Al Qaeda in Pakistan. The balancing act, of course, is the President’s standing in that country with an election coming up this fall”.
