NYT: U.S. Aiding Pakistan's Hunt for AlQaeda

U.S. Aiding Pakistan's Hunt for Al Qaeda
By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: March 23, 2004


WASHINGTON, March 22 — The United States is providing a wide array of behind-the-scenes support to Pakistani forces combating suspected fighters for Al Qaeda near the Afghan border, including spy satellites, electronic-eavesdropping planes and sophisticated ground sensors, American officials in Washington and the region said.

As part of a broader American offensive just across the rugged boundary in eastern Afghanistan, hundreds of American troops have also recently set up what the military calls "blocking positions" at strategic junctions along the frontier to trap and kill militants fleeing the Pakistani attacks....

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In recent weeks and months, the American military has provided Pakistani forces with helicopters and specialized training, as well as a range of sophisticated ground sensors that can count vehicles on mountain roads and measure their loads by the vibrations they emit.

The military has some technology that can be used to detect tunnels, but it was unclear whether such devices, if available, would have been effective in finding a mile-long tunnel from a besieged mud fortress that Pakistani officials discovered Monday. It might have been an escape route for militant leaders, the officials said....

(The article adds that military officials say that "small numbers of commandos attached to Joint Task Force 121, a secret unit made up of military Special Operations forces and Central Intelligence officers, have conducted cross-border operations." These commandos, according to the article, were involved in the capture of Saddam Hussein.)


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/politics/23MILI.html