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Clamp Down on Pakistani Border, U.S. General Urges NATO Commanders

Posted on: Thursday, 27 July 2006, 09:00 CDT

By TERRY PEDWELL

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - NATO needs to put a tighter grip on the Afghan-Pakistani border to control terrorists, says the commander of U.S. operations in the south Asian region.

Not unlike the Canada-U.S. border, the twisted dividing line between Afghanistan and Pakistan will be difficult to control, and virtually impossible to close, says Gen. John Abizaid.

However, NATO must do everything it can, in concert with Pakistani officials, to prevent al-Qaida-backed fighters and suicide attackers from entering Afghanistan, Abizaid told The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview.

"We need to have a close working relationship between the NATO military forces in the southern sector, and the Pakistani forces on the other side," said Abizaid, whose command includes American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

About 8,000 NATO forces, mostly Canadian, British and Dutch, are set to deploy in the south as part of an alliance expansion.

In Brussels, Belgium Wednesday, NATO countries formally approved the move into the southern provinces.

Canada currently has about 2,200 troops in the south, under the umbrella of the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom.

Closing the Afghan-Pakistani border, said Abizaid, would be impossible given the rough terrain and its sheer size.

Afghanistan's longest border is with Pakistan to the east and south. An estimated 35,000 people cross the border each day and it's widely believed that most of the foreign insurgents fighting alongside Taliban forces in Afghanistan come from Pakistan.

The rest of the country is land locked on all other sides by smaller borders with Iran to the west, and Turkmenistan, Uzbeskistan, Tajikistan and China to the north.

More closely controlling the terrain between Afghanistan and Pakistan would cut the number of insurgent attacks against coalition and Afghan government forces, as well as civilians, in southern Afghanistan, said Abizaid.

"I think the answer is increased Afghan security presence and increased Pakistani security presence," he said, adding Canada and the United States know all too well the difficulties of keeping undesirables from crossing borders.

"As our two countries certainly know, long borders are hard to control and hard to monitor," he said.

"The notion of sealing the border is really not practical. The notion of increasing presence on the border and monitoring it better and co-operating more, I think, is practical."

"Over time, we'll be able to do that."

Pakistani officials have done a lot to control the border on their side, Abizaid stressed.

"We really don't give the Pakistanis credit for what they are doing. They are operating in a very tough area, one that they haven't had traditional military control of," he said.

"They are fighting the extremists over there and they take more casualties on their side of the border fighting the extremists than we do on this side of the border in Afghanistan."

Abizaid blamed Islamic extremist groups in Pakistan, as well as Arab fighters associated with al-Qaida, for the flow of insurgents into southern Afghanistan.

"The connection between al-Qaida and the Taliban is unmistakable."

The top UN envoy in Afghanistan also blamed the recent Taliban insurgency in five Afghan provinces on international terrorist networks and foreign money.

The porous border with Pakistan was also a major factor cited by UN special representative Tom Koenigs, following a briefing of the UN Security Council.

"We face a Taliban movement which has apparently recovered and has to be answered by a series of measures, political and military, in co-operation with the Afghan government," he said after the briefing.

Taliban fighters have stepped up attacks this year in the south, triggering the worst violence since the Taliban regime's ouster in late 2001.

For Canada, it has meant the loss of 11 soldiers in the last six months alone - a far cry from the eight soldiers killed between early 2002 and the end of 2005, which included four who died in a U.S. friendly fire incident.

The bloodshed has raised new fears for Afghanistan's fragile government.

Fighting in southern Afghanistan killed 22 suspected Taliban militants, officials said Wednesday, as NATO countries prepared for a handover of forces to the alliance, likely next week.

Abizaid credited Canadian forces with helping to provide better security in the south and helping the Afghan government take control of areas where mostly Taliban or drug lords had earlier exercised authority.

"They've used air very well for forces that came in without much combat experience," he said.

"The level of activity that they've seen and the way that they've taken the fight to the enemy I think would make any commander proud."

Source: Canadian Press

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