Pakistani efforts to police its border have helped NATO improve security in insurgency-hit southern Afghanistan, although Taliban fighters are still sneaking across, a top alliance general said on Thursday.Gen Ray Henault, chief of NATO’s military committee, said there had been a “very concerted Pakistani effort” to help NATO reduce cross-border militancy, enabling the alliance to “take the initiative” in the south. “There’s a better flow of information on the counter-terrorism front. NATO is very happy with the approach Pakistan has taken to border control,” Henault, a former Canadian defence chief, told The Associated Press during a visit to Islamabad.
Henault said it was difficult to tell if infiltration had declined, but “those that are trying to get across the border are being interdicted in many cases.” He said there was evidence that Taliban leaders were still sheltering in Pakistan. “Some Taliban leaders have been interdicted,” he said, without elaborating on their seniority or identities. “You have to conclude there are some in Pakistan. But Pakistan is conscious of that and is eager to reduce that threat as well.”
Henault said militants operated along the border near Quetta, where camps for Afghan refugees are located. “There are probably (Taliban) elements in the Quetta area and we are very conscious of that, but I think it’s more in the border area that we see this kind of concentration of militant forces ... rather than Quetta itself,” Henault said.
Henault, who held talks with Pakistani military officials here after a three-day visit to Afghanistan, said NATO forces had taken the fight to the insurgents in recent months, although they continued to face suicide attacks and roadside bombings. “The insurgency is not going to abate any time soon, but ISAF has the initiative,” Henault said, referring to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
He cited success in the southern district of Sangin, in Helmand province, where on Thursday the US military reported that 24 suspected militants died in a seven-hour battle that included airstrikes.