Is Pakistan Softening on US Training Mission ?

By Charlie

Pakistan is getting it handed to them by Taliban and AQ-linked fighters in its Western territories.

Up to 20 Pakistani troops were missing and feared dead after 200 Islamic militants armed with rockets overran a remote military outpost in south Waziristan, close to the Afghan border.

A spokesman for the Pakistan military said the attack happened at midnight and lasted for about two hours. He said up to 40 of the attackers were killed.

About 40 members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps occupied the fort.

…Which may explain this story:

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Pakistan is taking a more welcoming view of U.S. suggestions for using American troops to train and advise its own forces in the fight against anti-government extremists, the commander of U.S. forces in that region said Wednesday.

We are technically fighting the same bad guys, just on different sides of the mountains. AQ and Taliban are just as threatening to Pakistan as they are to Afghanistan , it just took Pakistan a while to figure that out, as they have always seen India as the #1 threat. In the past, the Pakistani government viewed the Islamic radicals camped out in the western frontier as a strategic reserve against India ’s larger and better trained army. Now, that strategic reserve has become a massive internal security problem that just assassinated a major public figure, and would love to target Musharaf next.

Partnering with Pakistan and helping them do the heavy lifting of COIN in the Western areas is no easy task. There is very high anti-US sentiment in Pakistan , a significant support base for terrorists, and a shaky internal situation. On top of that, the “AO” of Western Pakistan ’s Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) is crawling with foreign Al Qaeda fighters, Taliban, warring tribes, and other shady characters that further complicate the situation.

The bottom line is that Pakistan has to solve this problem. If we can help them, it helps us.

January 16, 2008 01:52 PM Terrorism ~ The Long War