WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Wednesday expressed deep U.S. regret for civilian casualties in a deadly incident this week in western Afghanistan, promising "every effort” to avoid recurrences in the war against a rising Taliban insurgency.
After a day of meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Obama had a more upbeat and determined tone as he lauded "unprecedented cooperation” between the two neighbors in fighting Taliban and other extremist threats. But he cautioned that success will not come quickly.
Obama told Karzai that investigations "will be pursued aggressively with full intent to discover what in fact did happen, how it happened and how we can make sure that things like that do not happen again. And it was clear that President Karzai was moved by that … and he thanked the president for starting off the meeting with that expression of condolence.”
Karzai did not ask that U.S. air strikes be suspended or reduced, said Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser.
Nor did Zardari raise the sensitive topic on his side of the border — the use of U.S. Predator aircraft to attack extremist targets, Jones said. Pakistanis have protested those attacks.
by the associated press
After a day of meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Obama had a more upbeat and determined tone as he lauded "unprecedented cooperation” between the two neighbors in fighting Taliban and other extremist threats. But he cautioned that success will not come quickly.
Obama told Karzai that investigations "will be pursued aggressively with full intent to discover what in fact did happen, how it happened and how we can make sure that things like that do not happen again. And it was clear that President Karzai was moved by that … and he thanked the president for starting off the meeting with that expression of condolence.”
Karzai did not ask that U.S. air strikes be suspended or reduced, said Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser.
Nor did Zardari raise the sensitive topic on his side of the border — the use of U.S. Predator aircraft to attack extremist targets, Jones said. Pakistanis have protested those attacks.
by the associated press
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