U.S. seeking more aggressive stance from Pakistan on insurgents

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U.S. seeking more aggressive stance from Pakistan on insurgents
By Michael Gisick, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, September 1, 2008

KHOST, Afghanistan — On a Thursday night in late August, a U.S. Army captain at a small base a few miles from the Pakistani border took a call from an officer on the other side.

A group of insurgents had crossed into Afghanistan and was about to fire rockets at the U.S. base, the Pakistani officer said, according to a U.S. military account of the incident. The Pakistani told the American where to aim his mortars, and the Americans quickly opened fire.

A few minutes later, the Pakistani officer called again to request another round of mortars, saying he was receiving reports of wounded insurgents and promising to guard the passes the fighters might use if they tried to flee back to Pakistan. The American launched a second volley, and U.S. scouts watched as a series of secondary explosions rose from the site of the suspected rockets, officers say.

It was just one incident in what has been a troubling summer in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, where U.S. and Afghan troops have come under escalating attacks from insurgents based in Pakistan’s volatile tribal belt across the border. But in a handful of episodes like the one in Paktika province on Aug. 21, U.S. officers have begun to trace the outlines of what they see as a hopeful, if highly tenuous, trend.

"We’re seeing vignettes of effort where (Pakistani units) are alerting us to miscreant terrorist activities … and are supporting our efforts in defeating those threats," Col. Pete Johnson, a U.S. task force commander in eastern Afghanistan, said last weekend. "In March, when I got here, I did not necessarily see that."


Reest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57131