Trump sends lieutenants to Pakistan

WASHINGTON, D.C.: President Donald Trump will dispatch his top diplo Pakistan in the coming weeks, turning up the heat on a nucleararmed ally accused of harboring terror groups.

Weeks after Trump angrily ac Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to depart for Pakistan late this month.

of Defense Jim Mattis, according to US and Pakistani sources.

The one-two punch is designed to drill home Trump’s message that Pakistani state support for jihadist groups has to end, according to

Washington has long been frustrated by Pakistan’s willingness to Taliban factions and armed jiha their Afghan allies.

The relationship reached the breaking point in 2011, when president Barack Obama sent commandos into Pakistan in 2011 to kill Al-Qaeda lea in a military garrison town.

With little change since then, that Washington’s frustration had reached the point where some

billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the he said in an August address.

But in the six weeks since Trump signaled that tougher tone, there calculus in South Asia has changed.

Mattis told Congress this week that he will try “one more time” to “see if we can make this work.”

‘Not acceptable’

any impact on military-to-military - cial, suggesting any change would

Visiting Washington, Pakistan’s foreign minister Khawaja Asif

- gations” about Pakistan harboring terrorists as “not acceptable.”

“That is not the way you talk to 70-year-old friends,” Asif said bitterly.

“Instead of accusations and threats we should cooperate with each other for the peace in the

While professing anger in pu concrete requests to target the

share some intelligence for fear of tipping off targets with links inside

Earlier this month, a US drone killed three suspected militants in an attack on a compound in Pakistan’s tribal region.

the Trump administration, which is a mercurial commander-in-chief.

A September meeting in New York between Vice President Mike Pence and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was said to be brimstone rhetoric.

After that, Pakistan officials said, they were surprised at a tougher tone outlined in by Trump’s National Security

by Pakistan’s army chief to Kabul moderating, after years of support propping up the Taliban.