Pakistani army chief meets with NATO commanders

Pakistani army chief meets with NATO commanders (NSI News Source Info) BRUSSELS, Belgium - November 20, 2008: Pakistan's army chief urged NATO commanders to focus on winning the population's backing in areas bordering Afghanistan to prevent Taliban and al-Qaida militants from using them as safe havens, an alliance official said Wednesday. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met with a committee of NATO commanders in Brussels on Wednesday - the first time Pakistan's military leader met with the group. He did not speak to journalists after the meeting. "Gen. Kayani said very clearly that a stable and peaceful Afghanistan is in the vital interest of Pakistan," NATO's top military officer Italian Navy Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola said. Di Paola described the Pakistani approach to pacifying the lawless tribal areas as "the same way the alliance is approaching it, which is a comprehensive approach." NATO says this involves combining military action with development aid and support for building up local authorities. Fighting along the mountainous regions that straddle the border has intensified over the past year. There has been a surge of cross-border attacks in the last three months that have killed scores of suspected al-Qaida and Taliban militants, but have enraged local communities and Pakistan's civilian leadership. Earlier Wednesday, a suspected U.S. missile strike hit a village well inside Pakistani territory killing six alleged militants. Di Paola spoke to reporters after chairing a session of NATO's Military Committee, a body made up of the chiefs of staff of all 26 member nations and partner nations. Di Paola said that Kayani had told the defense chiefs that "because of the nature of the border, because of the nature of geography, history and culture, there is no force that can physically block that border." "The border is unsealable. ... you need the understanding of the people living there, to separate themselves from the bad guys, from the terrorists. You can achieve this by working with the people of the tribal areas," Di Paola said. Di Paola also said that NATO was seeking to set up alternate supply routes for its 54,000-strong International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. In recent months, pro-Taliban guerrillas have ambushed a number of convoys coming from the Pakistani port of Karachi and moving through the Khyber Pass on the border with Afghanistan. In April, Russia offered the use of its national rail network to transport military supplies to the NATO-led force via the so-called Northern Route. Di Paola said the alliance was already using Russian air space for this purpose, but that it had not yet reached agreement with all the Central Asian nations bordering Afghanistan from the north to allow the military trains to make their way from Russia to the Afghan border. "It makes good sense to have more than a single line of logistic support," Di Paola said, noting that for now the route through Pakistan was still functioning reasonably well.