Secret U.S. Unit Trains Commandos in Pakistan

[Pirate Smile]

Source: The New York Times

BARA, Pakistan — More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country’s lawless tribal areas, American military officials said.
The Americans are mostly Army Special Forces soldiers who are training Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops, providing them with intelligence and advising on combat tactics, the officials said. They do not conduct combat operations, the officials added.

They make up a secret task force, overseen by the United States Central Command and Special Operations Command. It started last summer, with the support of Pakistan’s government and military, in an effort to root out Qaeda and Taliban operations that threaten American troops in Afghanistan and are increasingly destabilizing Pakistan. It is a much larger and more ambitious effort than either country has acknowledged.

Pakistani officials have vigorously protested American missile strikes in the tribal areas as a violation of sovereignty and have resisted efforts by Washington to put more troops on Pakistani soil. President Asif Ali Zardari, who leads a weak civilian government, is trying to cope with soaring anti-Americanism among Pakistanis and a belief that he is too close to Washington.

Despite the political hazards for Islamabad, the American effort is beginning to pay dividends.
A new Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps paramilitary force has used information from the Central Intelligence Agency and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months, including at least five high-ranking commanders, a senior Pakistani military official said.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/world/asia/23terror.html?_r=1&hp

[Kittycat]

1. Not so secret anymore.

[bemildred]

2. Yep, should be "were secretly working ..." nt

[EFerrari]

7. I remember a report about this last Spring in LBN.

Or, maybe even before that. They went in before the drone attacks really ramped up.

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. And the USA is SOOOOOOOOO good at fighting ground wars, like Iraq and Afghanistan . .

.
.
.

barefoot soldiers with AK 47's keeping the "superpower" bogged down for almost a decade

gimme a break . .

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

4. I think it's a mistake to call either conflict a ground war at this point.

[bobthedrummer]

5. Here's a classic article by William M. Arkin: "The Underground Military" (5-7-2001 WaPo)

http://www.mafhoum.com/press/wash2may12.htm

[blackbart99]

6. Obviously we have learned nothing...

This is how we trained Bin Laden and his cohorts 25 years ago. This will be a disaster
someday! They will kill us with our own weapons and tactics.

As for the Secret part of this....Our Govt. and military do not know how to keep
anything secret anymore. Leaking like a sieve...everywhere you look.

[EFerrari]

8. We train our own enemies. That's very true. n/t

[Optical.Catalyst]

9. Helping train Pakistani military my eye

This sounds like a preprepared story to feed the press if the CIA operation got revealed.

Helping Pakistan combat Al Qaeda makes such a nobel sounding cause for a secret operation. I wonder what they were really doing.

[conspirator]

10. How long before these commandos turn against US troops ? nt

[closeupready]

11. The paranoia on this thread is hysterical.

n/t