Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended a three-day visit to Pakistan in which she confronted intense anti-American sentiment in a nuclear-armed country that has become a central front for violent extremists.

Wielding the celebrity she enjoys in Pakistan as a former first lady who first visited in 1995, Clinton tried to close the trust deficit that strains U.S.-Pakistani ties. She appeared on live television and in newspaper pages pledging to support democracy and development and praising the military for its five-month campaign against Taliban strongholds.

Clinton “broke the ice” by risking her security to visit Lahore and Islamabad, two cities that have suffered terrorist attacks, and listening to “suspicion, anger and aggression” from Pakistani audiences, Jugnu Mohsin, publisher of the Lahore- based Friday Times newspaper group, said in an interview.

Meetings with hundreds of Pakistani students, professionals, community leaders and journalists exposed Clinton to public ire over the use of air strikes on suspected terrorist hideouts in Pakistan’s tribal areas and over perceived heavy- handed conditions attached to billions of dollars of U.S. aid.

Clinton’s willingness to hear out the tirades and try to explain the U.S. point of view won her respect, said Mohsin, who was among leading editors invited to air their opinions.

“Whether the charm offensive works,” she added, “will depend on how consistent America’s commitment is to impact peoples’ livelihood.”

$7.5 Billion

In her remarks, Clinton sought to highlight the $7.5 billion in aid the U.S. has authorized for upgrading roads, electricity, education and other projects.

The top American diplomat’s efforts to dispel the view that the U.S. is dictating to Pakistan and doesn’t care about its people or prosperity proved an uphill battle.

An August survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center showed 64 percent of Pakistanis regard the U.S. as an enemy.

On chairs arranged on red tribal carpets at an arts center in Islamabad yesterday, Clinton listened to leaders from border areas caught in the cross-fire between government and Taliban forces.

Faiysal Alikhan, a community organizer in Dera Ismail Khan, an area hard hit by extremist violence, praised Clinton for holding a meeting in the circular format typical of a tribal council.

“The way she interacted, looked everyone in the eye, her body language demonstrated a level of trust,” he said in an interview. A larger gathering that followed with female professionals was “a sort of hostile environment,” he said, “and she handled that in a very honest and straightforward way.”

Terror Attacks

At the forum hosted by women television anchors, Clinton sought to deflect criticism over what Pakistan’s government says have been 528 civilian deaths in an unspecified period from missile strikes on suspected terrorist targets by U.S. remote- controlled drone aircraft.

Clinton told women who critiqued such strikes as an infringement on Pakistani sovereignty that al-Qaeda “is in league with the people who are attacking Pakistan.” Suicide bombings and commando raids by Taliban guerrillas have killed at least 280 people in the country this month.

Just hours after Clinton arrived in Islamabad on Oct. 27, a car bomb shattered a crowded market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 117 people, many of them women and children, in the deadliest attack since October 2007. Sixty others are still missing.

Some Praise

After the forum, Begum Salma Ahmed, the founding president of the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said she felt Clinton’s “visit has gone down better than any by a U.S. official.”

Clinton didn’t mince words when challenged about why the war on terror focuses so much on Pakistan. Clinton told editors in the eastern city of Lahore that al-Qaeda has a safe haven in Pakistan and she found “it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to.”

Pakistan’s army has launched its largest offensive yet against Taliban who control parts of the rugged, autonomous tribal zone along the Afghan border. The campaign is concentrated in South Waziristan, the base of the Taliban faction that Pakistan blames for 80 percent of terrorist attacks in the country.

U.S. Spending

Clinton asked her audience at the women’s forum how many knew that the U.S. had spent $300 million so far to help Pakistanis uprooted by their army’s assaults on the Taliban. Neither that contribution nor recently passed legislation to authorize $1.5 billion annually for economic development in Pakistan seems to have been taken in the cooperative spirit it was intended, she said.

“We feel like we’re doing things and we are not getting through,” she said.

One tribal leader complained to Clinton that Pakistan was “fighting your war.” Speaking in Pashto, Mufti Kifayatullah, a member of the local assembly in the North West Frontier Province, complained “the blood spilled is ours.”

Talks, not military assaults, are needed, he urged.

“I certainly hope there will be an opportunity for negotiations,” Clinton said, reminding him that the U.S. had tried to avert war in 2001 by urging the Afghan Taliban to hand over the al-Qaeda leaders who perpetrated the Sept. 11 attacks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Islamabad at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 31, 2009 00:01 EDT