PRESS DIGEST - Pakistani Newspapers - Oct 20

These are the leading stories in Pakistan's newspapers on Tuesday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy:

DAWN

-- Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has sought support of Mehsud tribes in the operation against militants in South Waziristan.

-- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointed a finger of blame at the United States for an attack on the Revolutionary Guards that killed 42 people on Sunday.

THE NEWS

-- Pakistani civilian and military leadership, in spite of belated and hurriedly inserted clarification in the Kerry-Lugar aid bill, told the visiting chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry, the U.S. must take cognisance of public sentiment in Pakistan and seek to address it.

-- Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani made it clear to the United States that while Pakistan was engaged in military action against militants in South Waziristan, U.S. and NATO forces must check infiltration from Afghanistan in to Pakistan.

DAILY TIMES

-- NATO forces vacating checkposts on Afghanistan allow Afghan Taliban to cross the Pak-Afghan border and join the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani told U.S. Centcom chief David Petraeus.