Robert Gates urges Pak intelligence to cut ties with Afghan extremists

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Pakistan's powerful intelligence service to cut contacts with extremists in Afghanistan, which he called an "existential threat" to Pakistan itself. Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence has had links with extremists "for a long time, as a hedge against what might happen in Afghanistan if we were to walk away or whatever," he said on a foreign news agency Sunday." "What we need to do is try and help the Pakistanis understand these groups are now an existential threat to them and we will be there as a steadfast ally for Pakistan," Gates said. "They can count on us and they don't need that hedge," he said, citing the ISI's links specifically to the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani militant network and to the forces of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Pentagon chief's comments came after President Barack Obama Friday put Pakistan at the center of the fight against Al-Qaeda with a new strategy to commit thousands more troops and billions of dollars to the Afghan war.