American Trainers To Aid Pakistanis in Tackling Terrorists
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — American trainers will travel to Pakistan this year to teach military officials counterinsurgency techniques to aid soldiers along the Afghan border in the fight against Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, American officials said yesterday.
The training will also leave the Pakistani border force better able to cooperate with American and NATO troops in Afghanistan, a military official said.
Twenty-two American trainers will arrive in “drips and drabs” this year and could be in place as soon as June or as late as October, the military official said on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Militant attacks have increased sharply in Pakistan’s border region in the last year. More than 40 people were killed in a suicide bombing in the North West Frontier Province yesterday, the third suicide blast in the region in as many days. Rising attacks in Pakistan have led to a corresponding drop in attacks across the border in eastern Afghanistan — where the majority of the 28,000 American troops in the country are based. But officials are worried the increasing instability is allowing Al Qaeda to re-establish a presence in the border region.
President Musharraf — who has struggled to hold on to power during the last year — was the head of the military until late November, when he stepped down. American officials believe Mr. Musharraf’s political troubles have distracted him from the fight against militancy. The American trainers will primarily assist Pakistan military officials who will then do the actual training of the Frontier Corps, the spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Islamabad, Elizabeth Colton, said.
The initial plans call for some 8,500 Frontier Corps members to benefit from the American training, the military official said. Current plans call for the American personnel to be in Pakistan for up to two years. The Pakistani army is having trouble dealing with the rising insurgency in part because the army is set up to defend Pakistan from outside invaders and not counterinsurgency warfare, the official said.
