US to change its strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan: Mullen

The top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen says building a corps of experienced military experts on Afghanistan and Pakistan is his top priority, in order to quickly reverse the deteriorating security situations in those countries.Talking to officers studying at the Naval War College in Newport, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen said that US must change its strategy for Northern areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is my top priority right now and I am losing people almost every day in a fight. There should be nothing that's more important, said Mike Mullen. Admiral Mullen says with tens of thousands of troops in harm's way in Afghanistan, the need for a specialized corps of people who know the region and cycle in and out of assignments there is crucial. And when those people are stationed in the United States, he wants them to remain focused on the region, supporting their counterparts who are deployed. Time is a real critical factor in Afghanistan and Pakistan and people are needed whose ramp-up time going into these two countries is absolutely minimal. That's language, that's culture, that's previous tours and experience, he added. Mike Mullen also said that Yemen and Somalia have now become safe havens for Al-Qaeda; however Yemen is an independent and sovereign country and US does not plan to send its troops to Yemen.