U.S. Wants Pakistan to Do More

President Bush’s national security advisor called Monday for two key allies, Pakistan and Afghanistan, to cooperate more closely with the United States in its war against terrorism.

“The three nations need to engage much more closely together on this effort,” Stephen J. Hadley, who took the post in January, told reporters here. “They need to share intelligence and take, as much as possible, joint action to deal with this threat.”

Hadley did not criticize Pakistan, but his remarks seemed less enthusiastic than the usual U.S. endorsements of President Pervez Musharraf’s cooperation.

Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said there was no longer a serious terrorist threat emanating from his country and suggested “we should now concentrate on where terrorists are trained, on their bases, on the supplies to them, on the money coming to them.”

That was widely seen as a reference to Pakistan, which Afghan officials repeatedly have accused of providing clandestine training, bases and weapons. Musharraf’s government denies the charge.

Musharraf told Time magazine this week that he did not know where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was, but thinks the safest hiding place for him is in the rugged region along the border with Afghanistan.

“The reality is that about a year ago, we had some identification of a rough area where he was, through technical means, but then we lost him,” Musharraf said. “That is how intelligence works.”

During Bush’s first term, Hadley was deputy to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice. He succeeded Rice when she became secretary of State this year.

Hadley met with Karzai and other Afghan officials during his visit, the first by a senior U.S. official to Afghanistan since Sept. 18 elections for the lower house of parliament and 34 provincial councils.

Hadley praised the country’s progress, but said the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan needed to do more to defeat terrorism.

“We are working very closely with the Pakistani government to try and enhance their capability,” he said. “And the bulk of our forces in Afghanistan are in the south and southeast regions dealing with the terrorist problem on the border. But this is a very hard problem. There is no quick fix to this problem.”

Hadley defended a reconciliation effort that allowed several ex-Taliban officials to run in the elections. They include the former Taliban foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel, and Maulvi Qalamuddin, who was in charge of the Taliban enforcers who routinely beat and executed Afghans accused of violating the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law.

The two ex-ministers were released from detention to join politics.