Besides asking the Obama administration to reduce the number of US troops in Pakistan, Islamabad has also asked Washington to close three military intelligence liaison centres operating in the country, reported the Los Angeles Times (LAT). The newspaper said the US officials termed the move as a set back to their efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in the lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. However, the decision has not affected the CIA’s ability to launch missiles from drone aircraft in northwest Pakistan. Those flights, which the CIA has never publicly acknowledged, receive assistance from Pakistan through intelligence channels separate from the fusion centres, the report added. The liaison centres, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the US to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against Taliban.
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help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior US officials said, adding that the US units were being withdrawn from all three sites as a result of closure of centres. The LAT said the closures, which had not been publicly announced, removed US advisors from the front line of the war against militant groups in Pakistan. The report further opined that the collapse of the effort would probably hinder the Obama administration’s efforts to gradually push Pakistan toward conducting ground operations against insurgent strongholds in North Waziristan and elsewhere.
According to the LA Times, the two intelligence centres in Peshawar were set up in 2009, one with the Pakistan Army’s 11th Corps and the other with the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are both headquartered in the city. The third fusion cell was opened last year at the Pakistan Army’s 12th Corps headquarters in Quetta. 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.
