Afghan official suggests border task force

[unhappycamper]

Afghan official suggests border task force
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 23, 2008 5:45:41 EDT

Afghanistan’s defense minister Monday proposed the creation of a joint U.S.-Afghan-Pakistani military task force that would share intelligence and strike terrorist insurgents on both sides of the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Abdul Rahim Wardak told reporters at the Pentagon that Afghanistan made a formal proposal for the joint force to the Pakistanis at the Aug. 19 Tripartite Commission meeting in Kabul. “They say they are looking at it,” Wardak said, adding that Afghanistan “is willing to cooperate fully.”

The war in Afghanistan “needs the combined effort of the community of nations — and the terrorist does not recognize any boundaries,” said Wardak, after completing a tour of the newly dedicated Pentagon Memorial to 9/11 victims.

“To fight them, I think we have to ... come up with some arrangement, together with our neighbor in Pakistan, that we should have a combined joint task force of coalition, Afghan, Pakistanis, to be able to operate on both sides of the border — regardless of which side.”

Such efforts to find the “real hideouts of the terrorists” would be based on shared intelligence, Wardak said.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/military_afghanistan_pakistan_092208w/%2e