Pakistan shuts down US 'intelligence fusion' cells in country amid deepening mistrust
Washington, May 27ANI: Pakistan has not only told the United States to reduce its military presence in the country, but also moved to close three military intelligence liaison centres, setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, US officials have said. The liaison centres- also known as intelligence fusion cells- are the main conduits for the US to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack US and allied forces, The Los Angeles Times reports. US special operations units have relied on the three facilities- two in Peshawar and one in Quetta- to help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior US officials said. The US units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the centres are being shut down. It was not immediately clear whether the steps are permanent, the paper said. The closures, which have not been publicly announced, remove US advisors from the front lines of the war against militant groups in Pakistan, the paper said, recalling that US Army General David Petraeus had spearheaded the effort to increase the US presence in the border areas two years ago out of frustration with Pakistan's failure to control the militants. The collapse of the effort will probably hinder the Obama administration's efforts to gradually push Pakistan toward conducting ground operations against insurgent strongholds in North Waziristan and elsewhere, US officials said. The move to close the three facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of US military personnel in the country from approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of incidents, the paper said. The closures have effectively stopped the US training of the Frontier Corps, a force that American officials had hoped could help halt infiltration of Taliban and other militants into Afghanistan, a senior US military officer said. Retired Pakistani brigadier Javed Hussain blamed the decision to close the three intelligence centres on the mistrust that has plagued US-Pak relations in recent months, saying that Washington's decision to carry out the raid against Osama Bin Laden without informing Pakistan's security establishment brought that mistrust to a new low. "There is lot of discontent within Pakistan's armed forces with regard to the fact they've done so much in the war on terror, and yet they are not trusted," Hussain said. "Particularly after the Abbottabad raid ... the image of the armed forces in the eyes of the people has gone down. And they hold the US responsible." ANI
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