Pakistan detains London bombing suspect

President Obama said during last year's election campaign that he would order airstrikes on militant targets in Pakistan, with or without Pakistan's permission. The US uses drones to fire missiles at what it calls "high-value" Al Qaeda targets in the troubled border area.

The New York Daily News reports that eight such operatives have been killed in the last six months. It says former President Bush gave a green light to the CIA to take action, boosting morale at the agency. Outgoing Central Intelligence Agency chief Michael Hayden told staff that a "powerful blow" had been struck against Al Qaeda during the last year.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Pakistani leaders often publicly condemn the drone attacks but their complaints about US actions appear to lack conviction, fanning speculation that there is an unspoken pact between the two countries. Earlier this month, Vice President Joe Biden met Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani and reportedly asked for the incoming administration to rethink its tactics.

But former President Pervez Musharraf, under whose rule these air incursions into Pakistan began, said this weekend that there was never any such understanding between Pakistan and the US in his rule.

"Pakistan has done more than anyone else in the war against terror," he said before boarding a plane on his way to the United States. "The United States should not ask us to do more," he said.

"If the Americans could start focusing more on ways to help Pakistan fight the Pakistani Taliban," the larger fight against militancy and terrorism in the region might be more successful, says Hassan Askari Rizvi, former professor of Pakistan Studies at Columbia University in New York.

Besides better cooperation with the Pakistanis, Mr. Rizvi says the American forces being deployed to Afghanistan next month should also be used to help seal the Afghan border.

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