Posted on 03/19/2002 11:54:45 AM PST by knighthawk
ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf met top US officials here Tuesday and expressed his condolences for the deaths of two Americans in a grenade attack on a church in the Pakistani capital, officials and reports said.
US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, the head of the US military's Central Command Major, General Tommy Franks, and US ambassador Wendy Chamberlin met Musharraf on Tuesday morning, US embassy spokesman Mark Wentworth said.
The president expressed his sympathies for the killing of US diplomat Milton Green's wife Barbara and their teenage daughter in the Sunday morning attack, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
A Pakistani woman, an Afghan man and an unidentified man who may be the attacker were also killed, and 46 mainly foreign worshippers, including nine Americans, were wounded.
No-one has been arrested or claimed responsibility for the attack, which is widely seen as a deliberate strike on westerners by militants furious at Musharraf's alliance with the US in its war on terror.
During Tuesday's meeting Musharraf reiterated his determination to continue fighting against terrorism and vowed to take stern action against those responsible, APP reported.
Franks, who heads the US military's operations in neighbouring Afghanistan, thanked Musharraf for his crucial support of the US-led campaign, as he passed through Islamabad on his way back from a 24-hour morale boosting visit to US troops in Afghanistan.
Rocca cut short a visit to India to rush to Islamabad on Monday in the wake of the attack, saying she would escort the bodies of the two Americans home.
She and Chamberlin have visited Americans recovering in hospitals in the capital.
Reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan as it struggles to recover from more than 23 years of war were also discussed at the meeting.
The talks with the US officials preceded Musharraf's meeting with provincial governors and police chiefs to review the security failure surrounding the church attack.
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