'Hunt them down', says US amid support for action by India on Pahalgam attack

TOI corresponded from Washington: The United States on Friday urged India to hunt down the Islamist terrorists who murdered 26 Hindus in Pahalgam amid continued American support for New Delhi despite Islamabad raising alarm about an all-out war if India acted to eliminate terrorists in Pakistan.

"We are with you and support you as you hunt down those responsible for this heinous attack," US Intelligence czar Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement that minced no words, calling it an "Islamist terrorist attack, targeting and killing 26 Hindus."

Gabbard, who is a Hindu-American, was following up President Trump phone call to Prime Minister Modi in which he pledged "full support" to India to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Trump has previously said, in the aftermath of the Pulwama terrorist attack, that India has the right to self-defense against terrorist attacks. The latest statements seemed to suggest Washington would have no issue if New Delhi took action against Pakistan, inside Pakistan, particularly after a Pakistan minister openly acknowledged institutional backing for terrorism, while blaming the west for becoming a rentier state.

“We’ve been doing this dirty work for the United States and the West — including Britain — for about three decades,” Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif acknowledged in a widely circulated interview on Sky News, followed by a meltdown in Pakistani media about a government official implicating his own country in terrorism.

While Khwaja was referring to US bankrolling the so-called mujaheddin during the war in Afghanistan to drive out the Soviets, Washington turning a blind eye to Pakistan pivoting its jihadis towards India is now being recognized in the current dispensation that has little tolerance for Islamist terrorism .

"No country should be forced to endure such heinous acts of terrorism year after year. We all bear responsibility for this — especially the U.S. — for failing to hold Pakistan accountable for embracing terrorism as a tool of its foreign policy for decades," said Jeff Smith, Director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.

Urging the Trump administration to break new boundaries strengthening counterterrorism cooperation with India, Smith said if the Pahalgam attack , like so many of its predecessors, is traced back to Pakistan, "there must be accountability."

Leading a vast intelligence apparatus with the tools and capacity to home in on evidence, Gabbard appeared to go even further, encouraging a hunt for the perpetrators beyond India's borders.

US support in the Trump dispensation following the latest attack is markedly different from the cautious restraining hand that Democratic administrations exercised. The approach still influences the mostly liberal US media, one of whose sentinels, the New York Times, headlined its story "At least 24 tourists gunned down by militants in Kashmir."

The Republican-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee, posted the headline with the word "militants" struck down and replaced by "terrorists" and a snarky message: "Hey, @nytimes we fixed it for you. This was a TERRORIST ATTACK plain and simple."

"Whether it’s India or Israel, when it comes to TERRORISM the NYT is removed from reality," it added.