Pentagon Cancels $300 Million Military Aid to Pakistan

The U.S. military says it has decided to cancel $300 million in aid to Pakistan that had been suspended due to Islamabad’s perceived lack of action against militants.

The Trump administration says Islamabad is granting safe haven to insurgents who are waging a 17-year-old war in neighboring Afghanistan, a charge Pakistan denies.

“Due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy, the remaining $300m was reprogrammed,” Pentagon spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Kone Faulkner said on Saturday.

Faulkner said the Pentagon aimed to spend the $300 million on “other urgent priorities” if approved by Congress.

He said another $500 million in CSF was stripped by Congress from Pakistan earlier this year, to bring the total withheld to $800 million.

In the meantime, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) Najibullah Danish said, “Cutting the aids can be a pressure on Pakistani government to close terrorist safe havens and stop supporting terrorism. Our demand and expectations are that the terrorist hideouts should be closed in Pakistan and the country honestly cooperate in fight against terrorism.”

Afghan security institutions stress on more pressures of the International Community to Pakistan. They are said to believe that the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban are training and equipping in Pakistan’s soil.

“There are different ways, if the United States wants to press Pakistan. One of them is the military option that destroys those centers that the armed oppositions of the Afghan government are training, equipping and supporting in them,” Aminullah Shariq, political analyst added.

The announcement comes just days before US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to visit Pakistan to meet the country’s new prime minister, Imran Khan.

In January, the US government announced it was cutting almost all security aid to the country.

There was no immediate comment from Pakistan on the latest funding cut.