PM Imran hits back after Trump ‘tirade’

Prime Minister Imran Khan hit back yesterday at US President Donald Trump’s claim that Islamabad does not do “a damn thing” for the US, calling on the US leader to name an ally which has sacrificed more against militancy.
“Record needs to be put straight on Mr Trump’s tirade against Pakistan,” Khan, a former World Cup cricketer, wrote in a series of tweets defending his country’s record in Washington’s war on terror.
The US president gave an interview to Fox News Sunday in which he said he cancelled assistance worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Pakistan earlier this year because “they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us”.
The friction threatens to further worsen already fragile relations between Islamabad and Washington.
Washington has long pressured Islamabad to crack down on militancy, accusing Pakistan of ignoring or even collaborating with groups which attack Afghanistan from safe havens along the border between the two countries.
Pakistan, which joined the US war on terror in 2001, says it has paid the price for the alliance.
“Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123bn was lost to economy. US ‘aid’ was a miniscule $20bn,” Khan tweeted yesterday. “Our tribal areas were devastated & millions of ppl uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis.”
He also noted that Pakistan continues to provide the US with supply lines into Afghanistan, adding: “Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?”
Instead of making Pakistan “a scapegoat for their failures”, the US should do a serious assessment of “why the Taliban today are stronger than before”, he concluded.
Trump also told Fox News host Chris Wallace that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had lived “beautifully in Pakistan and what I guess in what they considered a nice mansion, I don’t know, I’ve seen nicer”.
“Living in Pakistan right next to the military academy, everybody in Pakistan knew he was there,” he said, according to a transcript of the interview.
Bin Laden was found to be hiding in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, where he was killed in a raid by US Navy Seals in 2011 in an incident that sent relations between the wayward allies to a new low.
Critics have said US aid over the years to Pakistan has not yielded desired strategy goals for Washington, something Trump seems to have taken on board as he moves to cut assistance, already reducing payments worth some $800mn.
“They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!” Trump wrote on Twitter yesterday.
Pakistan denies supporting Afghan Taliban insurgents waging war against US-backed troops in Afghanistan, and Islamabad has also always rejected claims that officials aided bin Laden.
Khan did not respond to Trump’s bin Laden comments.