ISLAMABAD (AFP) — The head of the US military asked Pakistan Wednesday to thoroughly investigate any role militant groups based in Pakistan may have had in last week's Mumbai attacks.
Admiral Michael Mullen held talks with President Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan's top security and military leadership amid US efforts to calm tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi in the wake of the deadly assault.
According to the US embassy, Mullen "urged them to investigate aggressively any and all possible ties to groups based in Pakistan," which has vowed to work jointly with India to probe the attacks, in which 188 people were killed.
"All agreed that the tragedy in Mumbai represents a dangerous escalation in the sophistication of extremist attacks and an increased threat to the entire region," the embassy said in a statement.
Mullen's comments came after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a visit to New Delhi that Pakistan should "cooperate fully and transparently" with India's investigation into the coordinated strike.
Rice is due to fly to Islamabad on Thursday to hold talks with Pakistani leaders, officials here said, without elaborating.
Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also used the talks to urge Pakistan to do more in the battle against Al-Qaeda-linked militants based in its tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
Pakistan has pledged to assist in the Mumbai probe and has offered to set up a joint investigation mechanism to get to the bottom of the tragedy, which has threatened a slow-moving peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals.
While Indian and US officials have said the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba was likely behind the attacks, President Zardari has denied Islamabad had any involvement.
"I think these are stateless actors who have been operating throughout the region. The gunmen, whoever they are, they are all stateless actors who are holding hostage the whole world," he told CNN television.
The United States is particularly concerned about any military stand-off with India that might see Pakistan move troops from its western border with Afghanistan -- a crucial battleground in the US "war on terror."
India has demanded Pakistan arrest and extradite 20 terror suspects, including the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Saeed.
Others named were Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammed rebel group, and Dawood Ibrahim, who is wanted in India on charges of masterminding serial bombings in Mumbai in 1993 that killed around 300 people.
Pakistan has suggested setting up a "joint investigation mechanism" but says it wants concrete proof that all the attackers were Pakistanis.
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