US scraps aid to Pakistan over Taliban links

Washington cracks down before visit from secretary of state requesting help for embattled Afghan regime

AMERICA has cancelled $300million (£230million) in aid to Pakistan days before a visit by the secretary of state, amid frustration that Islamabad is doing too little to rein in Afghan militants.

The Pentagon said it would spend the military aid elsewhere because of a lack of Pakistani action to back US troops in Afghanistan. America has long accused Pakistan and its military spy agency of providing a safe haven and support to Taliban militants.

The announcement to cancel the aid, which was already suspended, came days before Mike Pompeo is due to arrive in Pakistan requesting help to bolster the beleaguered government of Ashraf Ghani in Kabul, the president.

A year into Donald Trump’s revamped South Asia strategy to end the Afghan conflict, US officials say Islamabad has not done enough to clamp down on the Taliban or its Haqqani network faction. The Taliban continues to control or threaten swathes of the country and recently overran parts of the city of Ghazni.

The money was withheld “due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy”, Pentagon spokesman Lieut-col Kone Faulkner said.

America had already announced it was freezing military aid after Mr Trump blasted Islamabad earlier this year for “lies and deceit”. Aid would resume if Pakistan was more cooperative, officials suggested. Mr Pompeo will be accompanied by Gen Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and America’s most senior military officer, for talks with Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, that will be dominated by how to combat militants.

Any peaceful solution to America’s 17-year Afghan conflict relies on Pakistan’s help, while Islamabad is likely to need US backing for an International Monetary Fund bail-out to ease its dire economic woes. US aid has until now helped to fund a military that consumes a fifth of Pakistan’s budget.

Faraza Shaikh, a Pakistan expert at Chatham House, said: “[The visit] is important for both sides. As far as Pakistan is concerned, it is very closely tied to Pakistan’s dire economic crisis. If the country is in the end forced to go to the IMF, I think it’s going to need the United States and the Trump administration on side.”

“It’s going to be very treacherous waters now to navigate,” said Dr Shaikh, “but Pakistan does find itself in a very precarious economic situation.”

Pakistan denies turning a blind eye to militants, saying tens of thousands of its troops and civilians have been killed or maimed as it has tried to combat Islamist extremists since 2001. The country says that it is being used as a scapegoat for the failures of American and Nato policy in Afghanistan.

♦ Isil fighters in Afghanistan are communicating with cells in the UK and western Europe, the Defence Secretary has warned. Gavin Williamson, who is visiting British troops in Afghanistan, told Sky News: “What we see is a real threat posed by these groups to the UK and we’ve got to be acting as we are to ensure that we do not see future Manchester-style attacks.”

Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber who killed 22 people in the Manchester Arena attack last May, has been said to have had links to the terror group.