Pakistan Under Pressure as Mumbai Fallout Continues

RAY SUAREZ:

Pakistan comes under pressure after the Mumbai terror attacks. We start with Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER:

Today it was Islamabad. Handshakes, photo-ops, and meetings on the second stop on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's mission to ease rising tensions between Pakistan and India.

Last week's terror siege in Mumbai — India's financial center — left more than 170 people dead. India has linked some of the attackers to Pakistan.

While in New Delhi yesterday, Rice called on Pakistan to cooperate fully in the investigation. Today she said she secured its commitment to do so.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, U.S. Secretary of State: I found a Pakistani leadership that is very focused and, I think, very committed to — for its own reasons, because Pakistan has been a victim in the war, a victim of these terrorist elements — very committed to acting.

And Pakistan is going to investigate the circumstances, investigate what may have happened to support in any way the — the effort — in the attacks in Mumbai.

MARGARET WARNER:

The only alleged attacker to survive reportedly told Indian investigators that he was trained in Pakistan by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri separatist group that's officially banned there.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari downplayed the suspect's links to his country. He spoke earlier this week on CNN's "Larry King Live."

ASIF ALI ZARDARI, President, Pakistan:

Not as yet. We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt, Larry, that he's a Pakistani.

MARGARET WARNER:

Ahead of Rice's visit, some 2,000 students demonstrated in Islamabad.

SHABBIR SALEEM (through translator):

It is our demand that the government of Pakistan should deal with America and India bravely. We will not hesitate to give our lives to protect the country.

MARGARET WARNER:

But there were counter voices, too.

CHUDHRY JAHNGIR (through translator):

The government of Pakistan should cooperate fully with India, as peace is necessary for this region.

MARGARET WARNER:

Pakistan also came under pressure in Washington this week from a bipartisan commission warning of a likely attack on the United States in the next five years by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction.

Former Republican Senator Jim Talent co-chaired the group.

FORMER SEN. JIM TALENT (R), Missouri: Pakistan is the epicenter of a lot of these dangers, and not just of terrorism, but also of the potential use by nation-states of nuclear weapons, because there's a budding arms race between Pakistan and India in that area.

MARGARET WARNER:

The report warned that the next terror attack on the United States was most likely to originate from Pakistan's tribal areas.