Terrorism, the common enemy of India, US: Roemer

United States Ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer, on Friday said the Al Qaeda, Taliban and Lashkar-e-Tayiba were the common enemies of both India and America.

"We have a common enemy in Taliban, Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Al Qaeda. We are working shoulder to shoulder in field of information sharing and collection and analysis of intelligence," said Roemer, on the sidelines of a seminar in New Delhi.

"As US President Obama, this partnership is the defining partnership of 21st century. He has also called it indispensable partnership. One of the five pillars we work on everyday in Washington, in Delhi and in our embassies and consulate is education pillar. It is the foundation for the success of so many other pillars (such as) green partnership, national security, science and technology, women development and anti-poverty programmes," he added.

He said the two countries have been working together to increase their counter-terrorism capabilities to ensure the safety of Indian and American citizens.

"The bilateral strategic partnership between the two countries was the strongest ever and they were working at an 'unprecedented level' on counter terrorism and regional security along with various other issues," he added.

Earlier, he met Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and pledged cooperation on counter-terrorism issues. Their meeting came amidst reports Mumbai terror suspect David Coleman Headley, standing trial in the US, has pleaded guilty before the district court in Chicago to get a lighter sentence than the death penalty.