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* Washington Post report says Pakistanis angry at Afghans for building fort on ridgeline between two countries
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: Senior US and Pakistani officials have recently stepped up efforts to tame the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. But high-level talks have not led to cooperation on the ground, a Washington Post report claims.
It says US troops are still struggling to overcome decades of enmity between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
When 800 troops moved into the area in February, it marked the first large-scale US presence on the border in Kunar province since 2001.
The Americans had been in place only a few weeks when the local Pakistani commander summoned them and the senior Afghan commander in the area for an emergency meeting to discuss fears that Afghan forces, backed by US air power, were planning to attack Pakistani posts.
Anger: US officials said the Pakistanis were angry that the Afghans were building a fort on the ridgeline between the two countries. The meeting quickly became very ugly and emotional, the US officer told the paper.
The Afghan commander said he needed the new fort to hold off Taliban fighters who had fired on his troops from Pakistani positions a few months earlier, killing four Afghan soldiers and wounding a US adviser. To break through suspicion, US troops planned to hold a series of meetings with their Pakistani counterparts. But they quickly realised that frequent visits were impossible.
Arriving in the area, the Americans had assumed that the Pakistani troops were cooperating with the Taliban, their former allies. They learnt, according to the Post, that the Frontier Corps soldiers were virtually prisoners in their posts. At the Karir Pass, the Pakistani troops are flown in by helicopter to their border forts. Their food, too, is airlifted every few weeks.
Every few weeks, a team of US and Afghan soldiers flies up to the border area to blast Taliban rocket-launch sites and safe houses. In April, they destroyed 10 Taliban launch sites in a three-day operation. The salvos slowed, only to pick up again in June.
US commanders say they have been able to slow the flow of Taliban fighters across the border by winning over Afghans in the Kunar River valley. But to stop it entirely, they say, they must have the support of deeply suspicious Pakistani forces.
One idea is to open a border coordination centre on the Afghan side where commanders from all three countries could plan operations.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: Senior US and Pakistani officials have recently stepped up efforts to tame the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. But high-level talks have not led to cooperation on the ground, a Washington Post report claims.
It says US troops are still struggling to overcome decades of enmity between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
When 800 troops moved into the area in February, it marked the first large-scale US presence on the border in Kunar province since 2001.
The Americans had been in place only a few weeks when the local Pakistani commander summoned them and the senior Afghan commander in the area for an emergency meeting to discuss fears that Afghan forces, backed by US air power, were planning to attack Pakistani posts.
Anger: US officials said the Pakistanis were angry that the Afghans were building a fort on the ridgeline between the two countries. The meeting quickly became very ugly and emotional, the US officer told the paper.
The Afghan commander said he needed the new fort to hold off Taliban fighters who had fired on his troops from Pakistani positions a few months earlier, killing four Afghan soldiers and wounding a US adviser. To break through suspicion, US troops planned to hold a series of meetings with their Pakistani counterparts. But they quickly realised that frequent visits were impossible.
Arriving in the area, the Americans had assumed that the Pakistani troops were cooperating with the Taliban, their former allies. They learnt, according to the Post, that the Frontier Corps soldiers were virtually prisoners in their posts. At the Karir Pass, the Pakistani troops are flown in by helicopter to their border forts. Their food, too, is airlifted every few weeks.
Every few weeks, a team of US and Afghan soldiers flies up to the border area to blast Taliban rocket-launch sites and safe houses. In April, they destroyed 10 Taliban launch sites in a three-day operation. The salvos slowed, only to pick up again in June.
US commanders say they have been able to slow the flow of Taliban fighters across the border by winning over Afghans in the Kunar River valley. But to stop it entirely, they say, they must have the support of deeply suspicious Pakistani forces.
One idea is to open a border coordination centre on the Afghan side where commanders from all three countries could plan operations.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
