Under pressure from U.S., Pakistan plans to tighten Afghan border

The two countries have been quarreling over which bears responsibility for cross-border infiltration by Taliban fighters.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Under growing pressure from the Bush administration and NATO to stem the cross-border movement of Taliban fighters, Pakistan announced Tuesday it would construct a fence and plant landmines along parts of its remote, rugged frontier with Afghanistan.
The measure was denounced by the Afghan government, and some analysts questioned whether it would be practical.
Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan, who unveiled the plan, did not say how much of the 1,500-mile-long frontier would be affected, or when the work would begin.
"In keeping with our policy to prevent any militant activity from Pakistan inside Afghanistan, the Pakistan army has been tasked to work out modalities for selectively fencing and mining the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," he told reporters in Islamabad.
Khan also said additional paramilitary forces would be deployed along the frontier, but did not say how many. Some 80,000 Pakistani troops are currently stationed in border areas.
In Kabul, an aide to Afghan President Hamid Karzai was critical of the plan.
Khan said both the barrier and the mines would be placed inside Pakistani territory, and therefore Afghanistan's consent was not needed.
Cross-border infiltration
Afghanistan and Pakistan have been quarreling sharply in recent weeks over which bears the greater responsibility for cross-border infiltration by Taliban fighters.
Karzai has openly accused Pakistan's government of fomenting militancy and aiding Taliban fighters; Pakistan has said the problem is that Karzai's government has not effectively imposed the rule of law inside Afghanistan.
At least 4,000 people have died in fighting in Afghanistan during the 2006, which has been the bloodiest year since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. The insurgency has gained significant momentum in recent months, although NATO commanders say the rising toll is due to part to coalition troops' aggressive pursuit of militants.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier, a British colonial-era line of demarcation which has never been recognized by Afghanistan, cuts through the homeland of Pashtun tribes, whose members are accustomed to traveling across it without border formalities.
"There is long-standing migration that has nothing to do with war or fighters or Taliban," said Shafqat Mehmood, a former Pakistani senator who is now a political analyst.
But fighters also find the borderlands' high mountain passes and empty deserts an ideal sanctuary.
International criticism
Mehmood said Pakistan's announcement was likely meant to counter international criticism aimed at President Pervez Musharraf over Pakistan's role in the U.S.-led war on terror.
Although Musharraf is an avowed ally of the Bush administration in the hunt for Taliban and al-Qaida figures, Pakistan nurtured the Taliban in its early days, and its intelligence service is believed to maintain links with the Islamist militia.