A Pakistani Special Service Group (SSG) unit, trained by Americans, is to be deployed in the Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan to take quick and effective action against insurgents.
A report in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday said: "The Pakistani commando division, trained by the United States, is an elite special operations force similar to the [US] Army's Special Forces, or Green Berets. Pakistan has been criticised for sending conventional troops who do not have training in the kind of guerrilla warfare techniques that US officials say are needed to fight the militants in the Tribal Areas. 'The Americans tell us that they need action now,' said a senior Pakistani official who was in Washington last week during Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's meetings with President [George W] Bush. Deployment of the special Pakistani force 'will meet the American demand of immediate action'."
Protection: The senior Pakistani official told the newspaper that the proposals were calibrated to protect Pakistan's sovereignty. Islamabad has also proposed allowing the US to deploy more sophisticated equipment in the Tribal Areas in a joint effort to track and kill insurgents, officials said. Pakistan's military has told the Pentagon that it is planning to move a major unit of its regular army into the Tribal Areas and senior Pakistani officials have proposed a plan in which the intelligence services of both countries would work to end the conflict between the spies and informants that each uses in the Tribal Areas and who have often been working against each other. |