Pak not helping,war going nowhere: US

That conclusion,in a 38-page report on the war in Afghanistan and efforts to defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan,comes three months before Obama is scheduled to announce the pace at which US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan. It amounts to a concession that the effort to match Obamas surge of troops in Afghanistan with a strategy to squeeze al-Qaeda and the Taliban from Pakistani side of the border has yielded virtually no results.

For more than a year US officials have expressed frustration with the slow pace of the Pakistani effort. But rarely have they gone public with the scope of those frustrations.

The report noted that an effort by the Pakistani military to clear militants from Mohmand,a part of the tribal areas in northwest Pakistan,was failing for the third time in two years. The failure was a clear indicator of the inability of the Pakistan military and government to render cleared areas resistant to insurgency return, the report said. The country cannot keep its helicopters flying,the report said,and is reluctant to accept US-provided helicopter maintenance teams, part of a concern about letting US troops operate openly in Pakistan.

What remains vexing is the lack of any indication of hold and build planning or staging efforts to complement ongoing clearing operations, the report concluded. As such,there remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan,despite unprecedented deployment of over 1,47,000 forces.

The report also lamented that four centres operated by US,Pakistani and Afghan troops are running on the Afghan side of the border,but none are operating on Pakistan side,despite a pledge from Pakistan to do so. Deterioration of Pakistans economy 8230;poses greatest threat to stability, the report said.