Cheney makes unannounced visit to Pakistan [View All]

[maddezmom]

ISLAMABAD, Feb 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit to Pakistan on Monday to press for President Pervez Musharraf's help in combating a new Taliban offensive in Afghanistan and a resurgent al Qaeda.

Cheney was meeting with Musharraf at the presidential palace in Islamabad, an official told reporters traveling with the vice president.

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Cheney Stops in Pakistan Seeking More Action to Halt Taliban


Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced stop in Islamabad to press Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to step up enforcement along the porous border with Afghanistan and prevent a resurgence of the Taliban and al- Qaeda training camps.

Cheney spent about four hours in the Pakistani capital for talks with Musharraf following a weeklong trip to Japan and Australia and a stop in Oman last night. For security reasons, reporters traveling with him were barred from disclosing the visit in advance.

The Bush administration is trying to blunt a fresh challenge from the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim group that governed Afghanistan under a harsh code of Islamic law until the U.S. drove it from power after the Sept. 11 attacks. Cheney's visit underscores American concern about countering a Taliban offensive launched from the remote mountainous region along Pakistan's 1,510-mile-long (2,430 kilometer) border with Afghanistan. The area is largely controlled by tribal leaders and not the central government.

``The terrorists have concluded that we are decadent in spirit, weak in character and conquerable,'' Cheney said in a speech in Sydney on Feb. 23. ``The notion that free countries can turn our backs on what happens in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other possible safe haven for terrorists is an option that we simply cannot indulge.''

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