US plans to widen troops training against Al-Qaeda
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON—The United States military is developing a plan to send about 100 American trainers to work with a Pakistani paramilitary force that is the vanguard in the fight against Al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Pakistan’s tribal areas, American military officials said.
According to a report of US Newspaper New York Times, Pakistan has ruled out allowing American combat troops to fight Qaeda and Taliban militants in the tribal areas. But Pakistani leaders have privately indicated that they would welcome additional American trainers to help teach new skills to Pakistani soldiers.
Even though the training program would unfold over several months, it is being disclosed at a time of heightened operations in the unruly tribal areas along the Afghan border, the report said.
The 40-page classified plan now under review at the United States Central Command to help train the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 members recruited from ethnic groups on the border, would significantly increase the size and scope of the American training role in the country.
United States trainers initially would be restricted to training compounds, but with Pakistani consent could eventually accompany Pakistani troops on missions “to the point of contact” with militants, as American trainers now do with Iraqi troops in Iraq, a senior American military official said. Britain is also considering a similar training mission in Pakistan, officials said. A spokesman at the British Embassy here declined to comment.
At the request of Pakistan’s new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the US Central Command two weeks ago sent a four-member intelligence team, led by a lieutenant colonel, to work closely with Pakistani intelligence officers in Islamabad. The Americans are helping with techniques on sharing satellite imagery and addressing Pakistani requests to buy equipment used to intercept the militants’ communications, a senior American officer said.
The Pentagon has spent about $25 million so far to equip the Frontier Corps with new body armor, vehicles, radios and surveillance equipment, and plans to spend $75 million more in the next year. Over all, a senior Bush administration official said, the United States could spend more than $400 million in the next several years to enhance the Frontier Corps, including building a training base near Peshawar.
That document, titled “Plan for Training the Frontier Corps,” envisions a combination of Special Forces and regular Army troops working with the Frontier Corps in basic marksmanship, infantry skills and counterinsurgency techniques, Defense Department officials said.
The Pentagon is planning to send about 100 US military trainers to Pakistan to assist a paramilitary force that is operating along the border with Afghanistan targeting Al-Qaeda, The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday. Citing unnamed US military officials, the newspaper said that small teams of US special operations soldiers have already been sent to Pakistan to train Pakistani counterterrorism troops.
But a classified plan now under review at the US Central Command would increase the contigent of US trainers to about 100, the report pointed out. These specialists will help train the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 members recruited from ethnic groups living on the Pakistani northwest frontier.
“The US is bringing in a small number of trainers to assist Pakistan in their efforts to improve training of the Frontier Corps,” Elizabeth Colton, a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Islamabad is quoted by The Times as saying. “The US trainers will be primarily focused on assisting the Pakistan cadre who will do the actual training of the Frontier Corps troops.”
A senior US military official said the trainers initially would be restricted to Pakistani bases, but could eventually accompany Pakistani troops on missions “to the point of contact” with militants, the paper noted. Britain is considering a similar training mission, according to the report.