Washington: The US military has launched a coordinated operation with Pakistani forces to put pressure on insurgents on both sides of Afghanistan's wild eastern frontier, a US military commander said Tuesday.
Dubbed "Operation Lionheart," the operation takes cooperation between US, Afghan and Pakistani forces to "the next level" in terms of intelligence sharing and coordination, said Colonel John Spiszer.
"We are in coordination on a daily basis with the Frontier Corps," said Spiszer, who commands the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade.
The US military has long complained about the Pakistani military's failure to act against insurgent sanctuaries in its border tribal areas.
But Pakistan's Frontier Corps has been engaged over the past two months in fighting in Bajaur, which borders Afghanistan's Kunar province.
Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that the Pakistani operations in Bajaur have had a "significant impact."
Spiszer said his troops were working along the Kunar River valley and up into the mountain passes along the border to intercept and ambush insurgents trying to escape from Pakistani operations in its Bajaur Agency.
"What we have done is worked very hard to refocus our ISR assets, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance assets to do everything we can to identify transiting across the border," he said.
Spiszer, who has about 3,000 US troops in an area that encompasses four Afghan border provinces, said he did not have enough troops but would get more with the arrival of a brigade from the 10th Mountain Division early next year.
