Steve Quayle News Alerts

May 30, 2002

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has begun to transfer troops from the Afghan frontier, where they have been helping U.S. and British forces track Al Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas, to the tense border with India, a government official said Thursday.

Gen. Rashid Quereshi, chief spokesman for Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, told Fox News that a "small number" of troops would be moved, but that the bulk of forces along the Afghan border and the adjoining Tribal Areas and Northwest Frontier provinces would remain in place.

Referring to the standoff with India, Quereshi admitted to the Associated Press that troops were being sent to areas "where they are needed in the prevailing situation on the borders."

"We are extending the best possible support to the coalition forces in the war against terrorism, and this support will continue in the days to come," Quereshi said.

Musharraf said, however, no final decision was made on moving the forces to the Indian border. Pakistan and India already have amassed a million troops in the disputed Kashmir region.

"We are very seriously contemplating moving them onto our eastern borders if tensions remain as high as they are now," Musharraf told a news conference Thursday. "Pakistan's first responsibility is its security. We will devote all our resources to our security."

The United States earlier expressed concern about reports of plans for the redeployment, saying it could hurt the effort to seal the Afghan border and prevent the escape of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters or their re-entry into Afghanistan, where they might regroup or stage attacks.

Musharraf, who is also head of the armed forces, on Wednesday assured troops during his visit to border areas that the entire nation will support them if India makes aggressive moves.

Witnesses in the northwestern frontier area said Thursday they had seen scores of army trucks moving troops.

"I have seen at least 30 trucks from the Pakistan army taking hundreds of troops to eastern Punjab province," storekeeper Iqbal Khan, who works along the highway between the border town of Miran Shah and Bannu, told AP by phone.

Residents in Miran Shah — a remote border town near Afghanistan — said they also saw truckloads of light weapons being shifted to Punjab province.

The border interdiction effort has yielded the arrests of hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, including Usama bin Laden's top lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, now in U.S. custody.

Pakistan is a chief supporter of the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Coalition forces are still using the country's air bases and other facilities to pursue those it says are responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

However, without Pakistani troops' presence, the U.S.-led coalition has little short-term prospect of finishing off Al Qaeda or the Taliban, many of whose leaders are thought to have taken refuge in western Pakistan's lawless tribal regions.

India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed neighbors, have been on war footing since a Dec. 13 attack on India's parliament which New Delhi blamed on two Pakistan-based militant groups and the country's spy agency. Pakistan and the two groups have denied the allegations.

Relations were further strained two weeks ago, after an Indian army camp in the disputed Kashmir region was attacked, leaving 34 dead, mainly soldiers' families. Dozens of people on both sides have been killed over the last three weeks from intense cross-border shelling.

Pakistan has also said the threat of war may force it to redeploy troops from Sierra Leone, where it is part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

A Pakistani pullout from Sierra Leone would have serious repercussions for efforts to foster stability in the West African nation. The 14,500 troops there comprise the world's largest international peacekeeping force, and Pakistan has contributed the largest contingent — 4,320.

Fox News' Steve Centanni in Kabul and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54007,00.html