A media report says that US military has completed dry exercises for launching a unilateral strike inside Pakistan if a terrorist attack in America in the future is traced to that country. Pakistani newspaper 'Dawn' said in a dispatch from Washington that this trial exercise is a rehearsal of a military's combat skills without the use oflive ammunition. Quoting diplomatic sources, it said the trial run fora unilateral strike in Pakistan, however, did not involve US troops. Instead, it projected computer simulations of such an attack with an assessment of a possible counterattack and ofthe potential resistance US troops might face if they enteredthe Pakistani soil. The report quoted diplomatic sources as saying that the US had already informed Pakistan of its intention to conduct such anexercise before conducting the computer simulations.It added that soon after the Mumbai attacks, the then Bush administration had planned live exercises close to the Pakistan border and conveyed its decision to Islamabad as well. The US' decision forced the then National SecurityAdviser Mahmud Ali Durrani to fly to Washington for convincingthe Americans that such exercises would not help the fightagainst terrorism. However, the US abandoned its move to carry out suchexercises after US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen got anassurance from his Pakistani counterpart Gen Ashfaq ParvezKayani that Islamabad would do its best to prevent extremistsfrom using its soil for attacking other countries. A diplomatic source told the Dawn that it aims at convincing Pakistanis that now is the timeto uproot extremists. A failure to do so may lead to an attackon the US soil, which, in turn, could lead to an Americanmilitary strike inside Pakistan.