WASHINGTON (AFP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai believes the new government of Pakistan will be more aggressive in fighting the resurgent Taliban along the border between the two countries, the leader said in an interview aired Sunday.
"I believe they will be more active," he told CNN while he was in New York for the UN General Assembly. "I have seen that in them, and because they have suffered like we have suffered. (Asif Ali Zardari) has personally suffered ... The Pakistani people have suffered."
In a different CNN interview also aired Sunday, Zardari said he did not know whether Osama bin Laden was hiding with the Taliban in the tribal areas, but vowed to bring him, and other Al-Qaeda leaders, to justice.
"If we captured them alive we would try them," Zardari said, although he declined to specify whether they would be tried in the US or Pakistan.
"I would go around with my friends and see what they want. If they want them tried in Pakistan, we'll try them in Pakistan. If they want them tried in New York, so be it," he said.
Zardari, who was sworn into office on September 9, is the widower of assassinated ex-premier Benazir Bhutto. He has vowed to fight militants and Al-Qaeda and repeated his pledge after a suicide bombing in Islamabad on September 20 that killed at least 60 people.
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