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Pak, US forms joint counterterrorism task force
WASHINGTON: Pakistan and the United States of America (US) have formed a ‘joint counterterrorism task force’ to oversee operations against terrorism, Washington Post reported.This joint group, formed last month, is intended to satisfy Pakistani demands that the United States curb its unilateral intelligence operations.
Pakistan also plans to end the CIA’s use of the Shamsi air base in southwest Pakistan as a staging area for predator drone attacks. But they can’t (and won’t) stop Predator missions that originate in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the United States will keep supplying F-16s and may replace two P-3 Orion surveillance planes destroyed in a terrorist attack in Karachi last month.
Pakistani cooperation with US Special Forces will continue but on a less visible scale as Pakistan will take over what had been a joint training mission for the Frontier Corps at Warsak, northwest of Peshawar.
The report also says that the US will consult Pakistan as it seeks a political settlement in Afghanistan. A team working for Marc Grossman, the US special representative overseeing those negotiations, recently visited Islamabad to brief officials there.
Courtesy www.geo.tv