Report: U.S. Secretly Training Pakistani CommandosMonday , February 23, 2009
WASHINGTON —
U.S. military advisers, mostly Army Special Forces soldiers, are training Pakistani troops in their fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The secret U.S. task force provides the Pakistanis with intelligence and advises them on combat tactics, but does not participate in combat itself, the Times reported, citing anonymous U.S. military officials.
Pakistani army officers said last year that the Pentagon had sent 32 Americans to train senior personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in the northwestern part of the country, adjacent to Afghanistan.
On its Web site Sunday, the Times reported that the effort was larger and more ambitious than previously acknowledged, involving more than 70 U.S. advisers, including combat medics, communications experts and other specialists.
A commando unit within the Frontier Corps has used information from the Central Intelligence Agency and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in recent months, the newspaper said.
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of Pakistan's army, is visiting Washington this week as the White House and the Pentagon review U.S. strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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