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US quietly aiding Pakistan against al-Qaeda
The United States is providing a wide array of behind-the-scenes support to Pakistani forces combating suspected fighters for Al Qaeda near the Afghan border, including spy satellites, electronic-eavesdropping planes and sophisticated ground sensors, American officials in Washington and the region said. As part of a broader American offensive just across the rugged boundary in eastern Afghanistan, hundreds of American troops have also recently set up what the military calls "blocking positions" at strategic junctions along the frontier to trap and kill militants fleeing the Pakistani attacks. Largely from Afghanistan's airspace or above it, a range of American military sensors are peering across the mountainous border region into Pakistan. Spy satellites zero in on suspected enemy camps. Air Force E-8C Joint Stars ground-surveillance jets and remotely piloted Predator aircraft track enemy movements. RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft scoop up cellphone calls and other electronic transmissions. U-2 spy planes soar high overhead.In recent weeks and months, the American military has provided Pakistani forces with helicopters and specialized training, as well as a range of sophisticated ground sensors that can count vehicles on mountain roads and measure their loads by the vibrations they emit. The military has some technology that can be used to detect tunnels, but it was unclear whether such devices, if available, would have been effective in finding a mile-long tunnel from a besieged mud fortress that Pakistani officials discovered Monday. It might have been an escape route for militant leaders, the officials said. "We're trying to meet whatever requests they have," an American military official in the region said. So far, the United States has provided primarily technical and tactical assistance to Pakistani security forces. Pakistan has not requested American ground forces to help root out suspected Qaeda fighters in the tribal areas, and Pakistani officials have publicly stated that no United States forces are involved in their offensive. But senior American military officials said that small numbers of commandos attached to Joint Task Force 121, a secret unit made up of military Special Operations forces and Central Intelligence officers, have conducted cross-border operations. Those commandos, who helped track down and capture Saddam Hussein in Iraq last December, have not been directly involved in the pitched battle between 7,000 Pakistani troops and several hundred militants in a small cluster of villages near the Afghan border, American officials said. In the past, American forces have been authorized to pursue hostile forces into Pakistan from Afghanistan, if United States troops maintained "continuous contact" with the fighters, a senior officer with experience in Afghanistan said. "We have had synchronized operations in the past, but I would characterize our current operations as parallel and complementary," said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a military spokesman in Afghanistan. The senior American commander in the region, Gen. John P. Abizaid, met with senior Pakistani officials on Monday. Officials at the United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla., would not say whom General Abizaid met, saying his visit was long-scheduled as part of his regional duties. But Pentagon officials said it was virtually certain the stepped up Pakistani offensive came up during the general's visit.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-03-23 |
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