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| India-Pakistan |
| Reliability of Pak, Afghan soldiers questioned |
| 2008-04-05 |
| US forces deployed along the Afghan border with Pakistan only fire across the line when fired at, claims a report published by the Washington Post on Friday, while adding that Afghan and Pakistani soldiers are unreliable, the villagers ambivalent and there are even disputes as to where the true border lies. The report, which quotes local American military officials, asserts that Pakistanis such as Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan are reorganising the Taliban with help from agents in Pakistan's intelligence service. A greater frustration, he and other US troops said, is that they cannot trust their Pakistani counterparts. “The Pakistan military is corrupt and lets people come through”, Captain Chris Hammonds, commander of Attack Company, 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment told the Post correspondent. Pakistani forces reportedly told insurgents the location of his observation post, and when US troops in a firefight call the Pakistani military for help, he said, "they never answer the phone". The report quotes US officials who charge that over the past 18 months, Taliban fighters have exploited peace deals by Pakistan's government to create an unprecedented haven in the region. From there, insurgents have escalated attacks in Pakistan and in eastern Afghanistan, leading the United States last year to double its troop presence along more than 600 miles of the frontier. However, recent high-level talks among the three countries have called for more intelligence-sharing and co-ordinated operations along the border. Last Saturday, the first of six new border co-ordination centres -- with officers from the three nations -- opened in Torkham at the Khyber Pass, a "giant step" forward, according to Major General David Rodriguez, the top US commander in eastern Afghanistan. US commanders say they need at least 50 percent more US troops and more reconstruction money. At current levels, they said, it will take at least five years to quell insurgent attacks, which increased by nearly 40 percent in eastern Afghanistan last year, including a 22 percent rise in attacks along the border. Collaboration is said to be growing between Taliban commanders in Afghanistan and Mehsud, the CIA has said, while also alleging that Mehsud is responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Captain Hammonds said Afghan army units cannot guard the border because they rotate every three to six months and lack enough local knowledge. "The key to securing the border is to remove the Afghan National Army (ANA) completely," he adds. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 "Reliability of Pak, Afghan soldiers questioned" I think this has been discussed here quite at length; and just now it is getting noticed???? |
| Posted by: USN,Ret. 2008-04-05 23:47 |