NATO troop movements along border create anxiety in Pakistan

Jul 15, 2008, 12:01 GMT

Islamabad - Scores of families on Tuesday moved out of several Pakistani villages along Afghan border as hundreds of troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took up forward positions along the frontier, officials and media reports said.

Some 300 to 500 NATO troops backed by tanks, armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and artillery set up more than 15 posts along Pakistan's North and South Waziristan tribal districts, which have been used as sanctuaries by Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters launching cross-border attacks on international forces in Afghanistan.

A Pakistani security official told the English-language Dawn news channel that the NATO troops were moved from Urgan district in Paktia province and deployed adjacent to Lowara Mandi, Shawal and Ghulam Khan areas of North Waziristan and Birmal and Angor Ada in South Waziristan.

The movement of NATO troops came as the Afghan and US officials have stepped up pressure on Pakistan to stop infiltration of Taliban, who have dealt a severe blow to coalition forces in their ongoing summer offensive.

Nine International Security Assistance Force soldiers were killed and 15 more wounded in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province on Sunday when some 200 Taliban insurgents overran a combat outpost of the Afghan National Army and the ISAF.

Pakistan's military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas rejected reports about a NATO military build-up along the border.

'It is a routine movement for some exercise or operation on the Afghan side of the border. We closely monitor such movements and build-ups and there is nothing to worry about,' he said.

Abbas said Pakistani forces were in close coordination with the ISAF so that such movements do not create any misunderstanding.

However, the movement of NATO troops created much concern among the local population in Pakistan's border areas that have recently seen regular incursions by US pilotless aircraft and occasional missile and artillery strikes.

Hundreds of tribesmen had started to move from the border villages to safer places further inside the tribal region, a local government official said.

The head of the Pashtun Atamzai tribe, which inhabits the Afghan border, Haji Mohammad Afzal, vowed heavy resistance from around 2 million tribesmen to NATO forces if they tried to step into Pakistan's tribal areas.

Maulvi Omar, a Taliban spokesman, said the militants would be Pakistan's first line of defence if NATO or American troops 'attacked the country.'