Pakistan and U.S. Rebuild Strained Military Ties

Pakistan And U.S. Rebuild Strained Military Ties (NSI News Source Info) TORKHAM - Afghanistan - January 6, 2009: U.S and Pakistani military cooperation has increased as the two nations push to eliminate militants destabilizing both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, a marked change from last year's tense relationship.

Senior American military officers say the U.S. is allowing Pakistani officers to view video feeds from unmanned drones flying over Pakistan's ungoverned border regions. The U.S. is also granting access to American intercepts of militant cellular and satellite phone calls inside Pakistan. Unfortunately a fair bit of this will end up being 'fed' straight to the Talibunnies ...The Pakistani military is using the U.S. intelligence to carry out strikes against extremists in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which are widely thought to harbor senior members of al Qaeda, the Taliban and other armed Islamist groups. U.S. officials believe Afghanistan is deteriorating because of insurgents based in these "safe havens."

The cooperation is a contrast from earlier last year when Islamabad, reacting to public anger over U.S. ground and air strikes inside the country, withheld military cooperation. The once-solid relationship between Washington and Islamabad deteriorated over the summer after an American missile killed 11 Pakistani soldiers.

Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, said the number of insurgents crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan has begun to decrease, reducing a major cause of instability in Afghanistan. Gen. Schloesser said U.S. and Afghan forces, which were hit by up to 20 rockets a day over the summer, are now hit by two or three.U.S. officials attributed the declines to American missile strikes on insurgent targets inside Pakistan and the coordinated military campaign known as Operation Lionheart, which involves U.S. moves against militants in the Kunar region of Afghanistan and a large Pakistani campaign in the extremist stronghold of Bajaur.American soldiers fired a mortar at Forward Operating Base Bostick in eastern Afghanistan. "The operations in Bajaur and the Predator strikes in Waziristan have caused a disruption across the border," Gen. Schloesser said. The general's comments mark one of the first times a senior U.S. official has publicly confirmed the use of U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan.

Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Operation Lionheart had succeeded in pushing many militants out of Bajaur, which had long been the main extremist stronghold in northwestern Pakistan.U.S. officials credit the turnaround in part to Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the head of Pakistan's armed forces, who has come to believe that militants pose an extreme threat. Gen. Kiyani replaced the head of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, which has long maintained covert ties to the Taliban and other armed groups, and has devoted significant military resources toward the fight in the border regions.

Pakistan's fragile civilian government has also taken a harder line toward the militants than many U.S. officials expected.

William Wood, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, said in a recent interview that Pakistan was "unquestionably taking more effective action" against militants. "The only reason I wouldn't refer to it as a bright spot is that the problem is such a big one," he said.

The focal point of the U.S.-Pakistani military cooperation is the small base at Torkham, a strategically vital border town that abuts the Khyber Pass, the main supply route for Western forces in Afghanistan.

The American-built base here opened in the spring, and was meant to house military personnel from the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan. During a trip to Torkham over the summer, the barracks rooms set aside for the Pakistanis sat empty, with the mattresses still covered in plastic.

In late December, by contrast, U.S. troops sat in a large tactical operations room alongside Afghan personnel in dark-green fatigues and Pakistani soldiers in flowing tan uniforms. The video feed from an American drone was being projected onto a large pull-down screen at the front of the room.

The Pakistani personnel at Torkham have secure phone and data connections back to their country. A senior U.S. official said the Pakistanis receive access to American "signals intelligence," mainly intercepts of radio traffic, cellular and satellite phone calls.

Maj. Robert Brown, the top U.S. official at Torkham, said the base is meant to "knit together" the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The point is to make sure everyone knows all the same information, and can act on it," he said in an interview.