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Journalism of Courage
More than 70 US military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the countrys lawless tribal areas,American military officials said.
The Americans are mostly Army Special Forces soldiers who are training Pakistani army and paramilitary troops,providing them with intelligence and advising on combat tactics,the officials said. They do not conduct combat operations,the officials added.
They make up a secret task force,overseen by the US Central Command and Special Operations Command. It started last summer and is a much larger effort than either country has acknowledged.
Pakistani officials have vigorously protested American missile strikes in the tribal areas as a violation of sovereignty and have resisted efforts by Washington to put more troops on Pakistani soil.
A new Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps paramilitary force has used information from the CIA and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months,a senior Pakistani military official said.
Yet the main commanders of the Pakistani Taliban,including its leader,Baitullah Mehsud,and its leader in the Swat region,Maulana Fazlullah,remain at large. Senior US military officials remain frustrated that they have been unable to persuade Pakistani Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to embrace serious counterinsurgency training for the army itself.
Pakistani and US officials agreed to disclose details about the enhanced intelligence sharing to help dispel impressions that the missile strikes were thwarting broader efforts to combat a common enemy.
