Pakistan seeks more American help fighting terrorism on border

TARIQ OUTPOST, Pakistan -- By day, Pakistani troops stake out a hilltop shelter built of mud and stone, peering through binoculars at the narrow gullies and expanse of plain below.

At night, they climb into four-wheel-drive pickup trucks and patrol the unpaved tracks along the Afghan border -- round-the-clock vigilance aimed at catching Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Pakistani officers say their extra effort is paying off.

In recent months, 62 foreign nationals have been arrested illegally crossing the border in the southwestern sector, said Maj. Gen. Sadaqat Ali Shah, the head of the Frontier Constabulary paramilitary troops in the province of Baluchistan.

"They were not Afghans. I cannot say who they were," said Shah. The detained men were handed over to Pakistani intelligence agencies.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, chief spokesman for the Pakistan army, added that tightened controls have stopped almost all free movement over parts of the border.

"We will not allow Pakistani soil to be used for terrorism in any neighboring country," he said.

Yet he also said the army needed more help from the Americans, who have provided five helicopters, vehicles and other equipment to bolster Pakistan's border crackdown.

"Whatever we got from the United States is just peanuts," Sultan said.

Marked mostly by intermittent white-painted stones, the Pakistan-Afghan border runs 2,050 miles from the Himalayas in Pakistan's northern territories to the desert of Baluchistan.

Pakistani troops have not patrolled this border since their country gained independence from India in 1947. The area is largely undeveloped, and follows tribal law enforced by tribal elders. Here, the federal government has little sway.

While Pakistan switched from supporting Afghanistan's Taliban regime to aiding the U.S. war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, many Pakistani tribesmen still sympathize with the Islamic militants.

Maj. Mohammed Ashraf, a senior government official in the provincial capital of Quetta, said 207 checkpoints have been set up along the border.

, and a 25-mile embankment was being built in the area of Chaman, a border town about 85 miles northwest of Quetta.

Already, a towering gate stands in the middle of a desolate plane in Chaman, the main crossing point from southern Afghanistan. Up to 6,000 people cross the so-called Friendship Gate every day, Shah said.

Meanwhile, in the northern sector, commanders told the diplomats that 10 infantry battalions and three engineering battalions and a Special Services Group were now deployed, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan, a local news agency.

Three weeks ago, the army conducted a major operation in the area after an intelligence tip that al-Qaida fighters were hiding there. The army reported eight suspects killed and 18 captured in one day.

Corps Commander Lt. Gen. Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai was quoted as saying a total of 230 suspects have been rounded up and 10 killed in various operations in his sector.