WASHINGTON, Dec 3: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has urged India and Pakistan to show restraint in dealing with a “fairly delicate” situation caused by last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

“I think it’s important for there to be restraint on both sides and — but it’s also important to find out who was responsible,” he said. “And I think what we would like to see is both countries work together to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.”

Mr Gates told a briefing at the Pentagon on Tuesday evening that his department was closely watching the situation and had dispatched Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen to the region to avoid further complications.

“Admiral Mullen is in the area, as is Secretary Rice, as you know. And frankly, because the situation’s fairly delicate,” he said. “And so it’s important that we find out who did it and try and prevent it from ever happening again.”

Mr Gates said that while the militants also targeted Americans and Britons, “the truth is most of the people who were killed were Indian”.

Despite the death of so many Indians, he observed, the Indians had reacted very cautiously. “I would like to commend the Indians for their restraint at this point,” he said.

Mr Gates warned that the Mumbai attacks showed that the terrorist threat has shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Now that we basically have our foot on the neck of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the safe havens in the Fata and that area are a great concern and do pose probably the greatest threat to the homeland, from Al Qaeda and other extremist organisations,” he said.

Asked how he planned to deal with the threat, Mr Gates said the solution involved partnering with the Pakistanis, with US and Afghan troops working from the Afghan side of the border, the Pakistanis working it from their side.

The Pakistanis, he said, were also confronting violent extremists and over the last several months had been “moving fairly aggressively” in taking on some of those groups in Bajaur, Swat and elsewhere.

The United States, he said, needed to continue strengthening its partnership with Pakistan and “do what we can to enable them to deal with the problem on their side of the border”.

Asked if it was a long-term project, or something that could be addressed relatively quickly with a policy change or a tactics change, Mr Gates said: “We are prepared to move as quickly as the Pakistanis are. I know they’re uneasy about the American footprint in Pakistan, and I think we have to be sensitive to their political concerns. At the same time, I mean, we cannot do this on our own.”

Mr Gates said so far he had not seen any signs to suggest that the Pakistanis were withdrawing their troops from the Afghan border to deal with an expected mobilisation of troops on its border with India.

“Well, that’s kind of hypothetical. I would just say that we haven’t seen any sign of that at this point,” he said.