KABUL, Afghanistan – The American military said yesterday it will hold its first joint maneuvers with both Afghanistan and Pakistan along the mountainous border between the two Central Asian countries where Osama bin Laden and other top Al Qaeda figures are believed to be hiding.

The operation, to be called Inspired Gambit, will be an “air assault exercise” involving a small contingent of Afghan soldiers and an unspecified number of Pakistani troops, American military spokesman Colonel Laurent Fox said during a news conference in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

“We feel that it is important that the only way we will solve the terrorism and insurgency problem is to work closely together with each other,” Colonel Fox said.

The exercise, which Colonel Fox said would be the first of its kind, is expected to take place during May and follows Afghan and Pakistani officials accusing each other of not doing enough to prevent militants crossing back and forth between the two countries.

A senior Pakistan army official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press that Pakistan and America routinely hold joint military exercises, but it was the first time Afghanistan has been asked to join the maneuvers.

A Pakistani military official said, however, the exercises would not be held along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as Colonel Fox said, but in a Pakistan military exercise area that he would not specify because of security reasons. The official, who requested anonymity in line with policy, said the exercise would take place in the first week of May.

Last year,a joint American-Pakistani air assault exercise was held at a Pakistani military facility at Cherat, in North West Frontier Province, about 60 miles from the Afghan border.